CHINA’S
WATER-ENERGY-FOOD
R ADMAP
A Global Choke Point Report
By
Susan Chan Shifflett
Jennifer L. Turner
Luan Dong
Ilaria Mazzocco
Bai Yunwen
February, 2015
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Energy
Our CEF research assistants were invaluable
Foundation’s China Sustainable Energy
in producing this report from editing and fine
Program and Skoll Global Threats Fund for
tuning by Darius Izad and Xiupei Liang, to
their core support to the China Water Energy
Siqi Han’s keen eye in creating our infographics.
Team exchange and the production of this
The chinadialogue team—Alan Wang, Huang
Roadmap. This report was also made possible
Lushan, Zhao Dongjun—deserves a cheer for
thanks to additional funding from the Henry Luce
their speedy and superior translation of our report
Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, blue
into Chinese. At the last stage we are indebted
moon fund, USAID, and Vermont Law School.
to Katie Lebling who with a keen eye did the
We are also in debt to the participants of the China
final copyedits, whipping the text and citations
Water-Energy Team who dedicated considerable
into shape and CEF research assistant Qinnan
time to assist us in the creation of this Roadmap.
Zhou who did the final sharpening of the Chinese
We also are grateful to those who reviewed the
text. Last, but never least, is our graphic designer,
near-final version of this publication, in particular,
Kathy Butterfield whose creativity in design
Vatsal Bhatt, Christine Boyle, Pamela Bush,
always makes our text shine.
Heather Cooley, Fred Gale, Ed Grumbine, Jia
Shaofeng, Jia Yangwen, Peter V. Marsters, Sun
Qingwei, Vincent Tidwell, Yang Fuqiang, Zhang
Chao, and Zhao Lijian.
All errors and omissions are those of the authors
and not those acknowledged here. The views
expressed in this report are those of the authors
and not necessarily those of the Wilson Center,
Greenovation Hub, or the funders.
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Jane Harman, Director, President and CEO
Thomas R. Nides
Chairman of the Board
Sander R. Gerber
Vice Chairman
PUBLIC CITIZEN MEMBERS:
James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John Kerry, Secretary, U.S.
Department of State; Albert Horvath, Acting Secretary, Smithsonian Institution;
Arne Duncan, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; David Ferriero,
Archivist of the United States; William Adams, Chairman, National Endowment
for the Humanities; Sylvia Mathews Burwell, The Secretary, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services
Fred P. Hochberg
Chairman and President, Export-Import Bank of the United States
PRIVATE CITIZEN MEMBERS:
John T. Casteen, III, Charles E. Cobb, Jr., Thelma Duggin, Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, USAF
(Ret.), Barry S. Jackson, Nathalie Rayes, Jane Watson Stetson
WILSON NATIONAL CABINET:
Eddie & Sylvia Brown, Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy, Ambassadors Sue & Chuck
Cobb, Lester Crown, Thelma Duggin, Judi Flom, Sander R. Gerber, Ambassador Joseph
B. Gildenhorn & Alma Gildenhorn, Harman Family Foundation, Susan Hutchison, Frank
F. Islam, Willem Kooyker, Linda B. & Tobia G. Mercuro, Dr. Alexander V. Mirtchev, Wayne
Rogers, Leo Zickler
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
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(202) 691-4000, fax (202) 691-4001
www.wilsoncenter.org
ii
Table of Contents
About the Roadmap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
China’s Choke Points: Where’s My Water?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Water for Energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Coal is the Thirsty King. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Polluting Too . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Hydropower – China’s Energy Queen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Natural Gas—The Emerging Energy Prince . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Promise of Clean (but Thirsty) Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Renewables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Nuclear Power Boom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Energy for Water. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Re-plumbing the Nation: The South-North Water Transfer Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
A Bet on Desalination to “Make” New Freshwater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Wastewater Treatment: The Forgotten Energy Intensive Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
A Path Forward: Energy for Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Adding Food Choke Points to the Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Water for Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
High and Dry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Multicolored Toxic Rivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Energy for Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Food for Energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Biofuels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Ways Forward for Food Choke Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Insights from Choke Point Issues in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
U.S. Government Choke Point Activities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Regional and Basin-level Choke Point Planning and Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Research and Nongovernmental Organization Choke Point Activities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
U.S. Business Choke Point Investments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Finding Solutions in Connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Action Area #1. Identify the Magnitude of Water-Energy-Food Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Action Area #2. Optimize Water-Energy-Food Nexus Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Action Area #3. Strengthen Collaborative Networks Between China and the United States . . . . . . . . . . 41
China’s Opportunities to Address the Choke Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Appendix A: China Water-Energy Team Itinerary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Appendix B: China Water-Energy Team Member Bios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
iii
About the Roadmap
The water-energy-food choke point is forcing a
Water-Energy Team (China WET) exchange in August
new reckoning. Three colliding trends—declining
2013. During the week-long exchange, the team
freshwater reserves, booming energy demand, and
participated in six closed and two public roundtable
uncertain grain supplies—are disrupting economies,
discussions in Beijing with Chinese government
governments, and environments around the world.
research institutes, think tanks, environmental NGOs,
As the world’s most populous country and biggest
universities, and businesses.
energy consumer, China’s energy, food, and
environmental security is threatened as it hits these
choke points. How Chinese policymakers deal with
these water-energy-food confrontations will have
significant domestic and global consequences.
In 2010, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China
Environment Forum (CEF) teamed up with the
This Roadmap captures insights from the China
WET exchange and numerous in-depth interviews
with Chinese and U.S. environmental and energy
practitioners. The three main goals of this Roadmap
are to:
1.
Provide a snapshot of the water-energy-food
2.
Identify research and policy gaps for
Michigan-based Circle of Blue to launch the
Choke Point: China initiative, which created a broad
assessment and narrative of the water-energyfood confrontations in the world’s second largest
economy. We were the first to report that 20 percent
of China’s annual water use goes to produce
energy from coal. Our reporting also raised sobering
questions on the large and overlooked energy
footprint of water in China. Over 20 multimedia
reports on China’s choke points have attracted
considerable interest from policymakers, researchers,
and NGOs in and outside China, catalyzing new
research, policy discussions, and programming.
To deepen these dialogues and highlight potential
solutions, the China Environment Forum began a
partnership with the Beijing-based environmental
group Greenovation Hub to organize the first China
Jennifer L. Turner
Director, China Environment Forum
trends and major players in China;
addressing China’s water-energy-food choke
points; and,
3.
Propose potential solutions moving forward,
with an emphasis on the role of China-U.S.
collaboration to address the water-energyfood confrontations in both countries.
The work of the China Environment Forum and
Greenovation Hub aims to cross silos both within and
across the U.S. and Chinese governments, research,
business, and NGO communities to inform, and
hopefully catalyze, better policymaking and a greener
environment. We hope this Roadmap will play a small
part in helping both countries better address the
water-energy-food challenge.
Lo Sze Ping
Founder, Greenovation Hub
Woodrow Wilson Center
v
Executive Summary
The water-energy-food nexus is creating a
sector, and the third outlines the water and energy
complicated challenge for China and the world.
demands of China’s food sector. The Roadmap then
Energy development requires water. Moving and
pulls in lessons from the U.S. experience dealing
cleaning water requires energy. Food production at
with water-energy-food challenges, and closes with
all stages—from irrigation to distribution—requires
suggestions on how Chinese policy practitioners,
water and energy. As the most populous country and
businesses, and civil society groups could embark on
the world’s manufacturing hub, China demands all
a comprehensive assessment of the current situation
three resources in ever increasing amounts, leading
and initiate action to address China’s choke points.
to shortages that are creating serious choke points
to the country’s development. Pressure on water is at
the heart of these resource constraints facing China.
This report builds on the China Environment Forum’s
(CEF) extensive research in partnership with Circle
of Blue, and draws heavily on a weeklong exchange
Roadmap for the Roadmap
with American and Chinese water, energy, and food
How China can secure enough clean water to
Since 2010, CEF and Circle of Blue have raised
maintain agricultural and energy production to meet
its population’s needs is a challenge that holds farreaching consequences for the country’s future. As
a systematic attempt to summarize China’s choke
point challenges and spark innovative thinking and
pragmatic action, the Roadmap begins with an
overview of the water-energy-food nexus trends in
China, starting with the energy sector’s thirst for
water—from coal and hydropower to renewables
and natural gas. The second section examines the
often-overlooked energy footprint of China’s water
experts that took place in China in August 2013.
awareness of the water-energy-food confrontation in
China and served as “matchmakers,” helping to build
knowledge partnerships among the government,
NGOs, and the private sector to further choke point
research. We were greatly encouraged when, in
November 2014, President Barack Obama and
President Xi Jinping jointly announced—as part of a
new climate accord to curb carbon emissions—the
launch of a $50 million water-energy nexus program
under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center
(CERC). This partnership could serve as a model for
1
future bilateral and multilateral water-energy management
large and highly energy-intensive water transfers (e.g.,
cooperation. With this Roadmap we seek to provide a
the South-North Water Transfer Project) and desalination
comprehensive look at the water-energy-food challenges
plants. Water pollution is also placing pressure on China’s
China faces and highlight further opportunities for U.S.-
energy resources. As the government steps up its efforts
China cooperation.
to reduce water pollution from municipalities, industries,
and agriculture, more wastewater treatment plants will be
Water for Energy
needed, consuming even more energy.
Coal remains China’s main energy source; according to
Adding Food to the Choke Point Mix
the International Energy Agency (IEA), about 80 percent of
the country’s power in 2013 came from coal.1 Initial research
While often overlooked, the inter-linked role that food plays
into coal’s thirst in China estimates that between 11 and 20
in the choke point must not be understated. At every step
percent of all water used in the country goes to coal mining,
of the process, from irrigation to processing to distribution,
processing, coal ash control, and cooling of coal-fired power
food production requires both water and energy. Droughts
plants. The lifecycle of coal is water intensive around the
coupled with competition over water access with cities
world, however its “thirst” presents a significant quandary
and power plants (especially coal plants) are reducing crop
for a country already facing a water scarcity crisis; China’s
yields. Moreover, as more Chinese people adopt meat-
water availability per capita is only one-third of the global
rich diets, industrial farms specialized in animal husbandry
average. Moreover, most water resources are in the south
are expanding. These farms are more energy and water
while much of the agricultural production and coal reserves
intensive, and the animal waste they produce is often left
are in the north.
untreated and leaches into soil and water, creating soil
2
3
pollution and toxic algae blooms.
The country’s efforts to alleviate air pollution may add
pressure on water resources given a new energy strategy4
Finally, China’s shift to a more industrial agricultural model to
to replace some coal-fired power generation with more
improve food security and raise rural incomes also requires
increasing amounts of water and energy. China’s agricultural
water-intensive coal-to-gas plants. Hydropower is currently
the second-largest source of electricity in China and the 12
th
Five Year Plan has accelerated dam construction to increase
hydroelectric generation capacity from 199 GW in 2010 to
420 GW by 2020. However, increasingly frequent droughts
and damage to downstream communities could hinder this
continued hydropower development.5 While nuclear, natural
gas, wind, and solar power production have a relatively low
carbon footprint, they have significant water requirements.
Electricity generation requires significant inputs of water
globally, and in China its use is aggravated by massive
and growing energy demand and significant water use
inefficiencies in agriculture and industrial production.
Energy for Water
While water use efficiency is gaining traction as a policy
priority in China, policymakers continue to emphasize
supply-side management solutions, such as building
2
sector alone uses over half the country’s water due to heavy
reliance on irrigation and high levels of water wastage.6
Insights from Choke Point Issues in
the United States: Finding Solutions
in Connections
China is not alone in facing the water-energy-food
confrontation. The United States faces similar resource
clashes. A historic three-year drought in California has
hammered the state’s hydropower production and forced
the state to rely more on natural gas, wind, and solar
power.7 California’s farming industry has been pummeled;
some farmers have been forced to shrink production,
switch to less water-intensive crops, or simply stop farming
altogether.8 Moreover, debates surrounding the U.S. shale
gas “revolution” and biofuels have brought more attention to
the water-energy-food nexus issues.
Over the past decade, U.S. national energy laboratories,
more comprehensive and integrated regulations on water
think tanks, universities, and NGOs have been at the
use. In addition to mandated energy intensity reductions
forefront of global research on water-energy-food choke
and water consumption limits, Chinese planners need
points, raising the issue on policy and business agendas.
to strengthen integrated approaches that look at the
These developments in the United States could offer
link between water and energy use, particularly in the
valuable insights on a possible path forward for China.
Action Areas
The Roadmap identifies three main areas for choke
point research and policy development in China that are
1
particularly promising areas for collaboration.
3
Strengthen Collaborative Networks between
China and the United States, identifying
opportunities for China-U.S. collaboration on
choke point issues. While some U.S. researchers,
NGOs, and foundations are starting to address waterenergy-food confrontation issues in China, the U.S. and
Identify the Magnitude of Choke Point Issues
Fill data gaps on choke point issues, particularly
on the energy use for water. A top priority for
Chinese government and business communities have
Chinese researchers and policymakers should be to
forward was the announcement of a new water-energy
calculate the financial and environmental costs of waterenergy-food interactions in China. Having concrete,
quantifiable numbers will help to create the case and
framework for implementing comprehensive water,
energy, and food management policies and laws. Data
needs to be collected not just nationally, but at provincial
and municipal levels, as water resources vary significantly
throughout the country. While the water footprint of
energy has gained some recognition as an important
development challenge, the energy footprint of water is
often overlooked—generally because water is seen as a
free or low cost resource. Once collected, data regarding
2
building and industrial sectors.
the energy demand of water will help shape policies to
achieve important water, energy, and food savings.
Ramp Up Demand-Side Management Practices
and Policies, focusing on integrated planning to
reshape water, energy, and food conservation
policies. Data revealing the costs of energy use for
water treatment and irrigation will likely add more
urgency to existing energy efficiency policies—such as
lagged behind in engaging on these interconnected
natural resource challenges in China. A promising step
nexus program under CERC as part of the November
2014 U.S.-China climate accord announced at the APEC
Leaders’ meeting in Beijing. Institutionally, bilateral and
multilateral choke point collaboration should continue
to be integrated into existing energy and environmental
programs. Moreover, because states, provinces,
and cities in the United States are some of the most
innovative in dealing with water-energy-food linked
constraints, local-to-local cooperation across countries
will be crucial. Finally, from a corporate perspective the
United States and China are significant markets for water
and energy saving technologies, creating opportunities
for joint technology development in these sectors.
While there are no easy solutions to these water-energyfood issues, this Roadmap aims to spark discussions
and debates empowering Chinese stakeholders and their
partners to explore appropriate frameworks to address
China’s water-energy-food chokepoints.
the Chinese Energy Conservation Law and the DemandSide Management (DSM) Regulation. Existing policies
and projects for energy DSM should be used to shape
3
China’s Choke Points: Where’s My Water?
Water shortage is the most important challenge to China right now, the biggest problem for
future growth. It’s a puzzle that the country has to solve.
—Wang Yahua, Deputy Director of the Center for China Study at Tsinghua Universityi
China’s unprecedented economic growth over the
Climate change is further aggravating China’s
past three decades has relied on three inextricably
water scarcity. Over the past 20 years, main stem
linked resources: water, energy, and food. Water
water flows have decreased by 41 percent in the
is essential through the entire energy life cycle,
Hai River Basin and 15 percent in the Yellow and
energy is needed to move and clean water, and
Huai river basins—these declines are particularly
food production is increasingly demanding more of
concerning because these three rivers supply
both resources.
water to much of China’s populous and dry
Water is at the center of China’s interlinked
choke points. While the country has the fifth
largest endowment of fresh water resources in
the world, by per capita standards it is strained
northeast.11 Climate change has contributed to
65 percent of that change in river flow 12 and the
rest is from the overexploitation by cities, industry,
agriculture, and mining.
at one-third of the world average.9 As in many
Water quality is as dire a challenge as water
other countries, China’s water resources are
quantity in China, where the World Bank estimates
considerably undervalued leading to overuse,
that pollution accounts for nearly half of the 2.3
waste, and contamination. Consequently, the
percent of GDP lost annually to the country’s water
central government warns that despite existing
crises.13 The Chinese government, in an effort to
water-saving measures China’s water demand will
emphasize the interconnection between water
exceed supply by 2030,10 with much of the added
quantity and water quality, coined the term “water
pressure coming from China’s energy sector.
pollution-induced scarcity.” The following sobering
Photo courtesy of Circle of Blue © J. Carl Ganter
5
statistics illustrate the severity and urgency of China’s water
41 percent of its population, 56 percent of its cultivated
pollution:
land, and a majority of the country’s coal bases.18 The Hai
• Overall, water quality in most river basins in China has
been improving since 2009, yet in most urban areas
approximately three-quarters of the surface water
and 55 percent of the groundwater is still considered
River Basin, which supplies water to Beijing and Tianjin,
has just 1.5 percent of China’s water resources to support
10 percent of the country’s total population (or 130 million
people).19
During the summer of 2014, China’s Shaanxi province
unsuitable for drinking.14
• Nearly 15 percent of the water in China’s major rivers is
not fit for any use.15
suffered from its worst drought in a century, affecting a
quarter of a million people.20 This was the first time corn
harvests shrunk in the greater North China Plain since
• In 2013, Chinese environmental regulators categorized
28 percent of water in China’s main rivers as so polluted
to be unfit for human contact.16
• About 4.05 million hectares (7.4 percent) of the nation’s
irrigated lands are irrigated with polluted water.
17
The geographic distribution of China’s water resources
is uneven, which affects energy development choices.
Eighty-three percent of the country’s water resources are
concentrated in provinces south of the Yangtze River,
providing rich potential for hydropower generation there.
North China, in contrast, is an arid region where 17 percent
of the country’s water supply is overexploited to support
2009.21 Even in the traditionally water-abundant south,
droughts have become increasingly frequent and intense
since 2010.
China’s projected water demand for 2030—818 billion
m3—is expected to outstrip supply, which currently amounts
to 618 billion m3.22 Significant industrial and domestic
wastewater pollution makes the “quality adjusted” supplydemand gap even greater.23 As some 350 million more
people move into urban areas over the next 15 years,
groundwater around urban centers is being pumped faster
than it can be naturally recharged and water levels are
falling fast.
China’s Water Crisis
Water is scarce; water is dirty; water is not distributed equally in China. Supplying water,
treating wastewater and transporting water requires large amounts of energy.
Percentage of ground water
classified as polluted
60%
Compare to the global average
per capita freshwater availability
GDP loss due the water crisis
1/4
China
Global
How much energy
used for China’s
water sector
Sources: The 2030 Water Resources Group, Circle of Blue, World Bank.
6
￥￥￥￥￥￥￥
￥￥￥￥￥￥￥
￥￥￥￥￥￥￥
￥￥￥￥￥￥￥
￥￥￥￥￥￥￥
￥￥￥￥￥￥￥
￥￥￥￥￥￥￥
2.3%
In 2030 water demand will
exceed supply by
25%
Box 1. Water Definitions
Terminology about water can be a bit “slippery,” below is how we used the
following terms.28
• Water withdrawal is the water taken from a source and used for
some human need. It includes water that is consumed, as well as water
that is not.
• Water use is used interchangeably with water withdrawal in this
roadmap.
• Water consumption is water withdrawn from a source and made
unavailable for reuse in the same basin, because of conversion
to steam, losses to evaporation, seepage to a saline sink, or
contamination. For example, water that is incorporated into goods
or plant and animal tissue is unavailable for reuse, and thus is also
considered a consumptive use.
• Water footprint is the total volume of fresh water that is consumed
in the production of goods and services; one can calculate the water
footprint of a product, a city, or a country.
7
Water for Energy
While water use in China is near its peak, energy demand will double by 2040. How to meet
this energy demand and quench its thirst is more serious than the current water crisis.
— Jia Shaofeng, Deputy Director, Center for Water Resources Research at the Chinese Academy
of Sciences24
Among all energy sources in China, coal is the thirstiest.
International Affairs estimated China’s total annual
Yet other growing energy sources—from hydropower
energy production is responsible for 61.4 billion m3 water
to nuclear power and natural gas—are also impacting
withdrawals, 10.8 billion m3 water consumption, and 5.0
water supply and quality in profound ways. Wind
billion m3 wastewater discharges in China, which are
and solar power use the least amount of water per
equivalent to 12.3%, 4.1%, and 8.3% of the national
megawatt of electricity produced, but their contribution
totals for each water category respectively.26 Our own
to water saving is still minimal as they only make up
Choke Point China research found that coal production’s
5.2 percent of the overall electricity generation
full lifecycle accounts for approximately 20 percent
capacity.25 Few countries prioritize the water footprint
of water withdrawals in the country and is driving the
of energy in their development plans—an omission that
increases in water use in north China to levels exceeding
leads to investments and development that undermine
the available resources. Chinese researcher Liu Pei
water security.
estimated that coal’s water use was closer to 11
There is a paucity of data on water use in energy
globally, underscoring the need for greater attention
and research on this issue. A recent study done at
Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and
Photo courtesy of Circle of Blue © J. Carl Ganter
percent.27 These varying estimates point to the need
for more data and uniform standards for measurement
and terminology. (See Box 1 on previous page for
water definitions).
9
Water for Energy
Coal is King, Thirsty and Dirty
In 2011 China accounted for
Currently coal supplies
47% of global coal consumption. 70% of China’s electricity.
47%
70%
Hydropower China’s Energy Queen
3
1 2
Hydropower is China’s 2nd
largest source of electricity
20%
of China’s national water
withdrawals* goes to coal mining,
processing, coal ash control, and
coal-fired power plants.
Clean Energy - China’s Emerging
Prince - Needs Water Too
22% of total installed
electricity capacity
Lifetime water requirement (tons/MW)
494
48667
1767
Besides changing water flows and damaging river ecosystems, the current
hydropower boom in southwest China is also fostering energy- and
pollution-intensive industries such as aluminum and steel production.
Solar
PV**
Wind
* lifecycle water withdrawals
** mono- and poly- crystalline silicon
Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration, China Country Analysis, Chao Zhang and Laura Diaz Anadon.
10
Concentrated
Solar
Coal is the Thirsty King
China has been the world’s largest coal consumer since
China’s State Council also issued an Airborne Pollution
1986. In 2011, China accounted for 47 percent of global
Action Plan in September 2013 with several sweeping
coal consumption—almost as much as the rest of the
measures, which includes mandated nationwide air quality
29
world combined. (See Figure 1). Since 2000, China has
improvements. Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli recently pledged
accounted for 82 percent of the global growth in coal
that by 2020 the country will reduce its carbon intensity by
demand. Coal’s contribution to air pollution has become
40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels. On-the-ground efforts
a major sociopolitical flashpoint, catalyzing swift responses
that could support this pledge are the commitments by 12
in Chinese policy. For example, in August 2014, Beijing
provinces that account for 44 percent of the country’s coal
announced it would ban all coal use in the city’s six major
consumption to control coal use; six have even included
districts by 2020 and in September 2014, policymakers
caps in their action plans.34 (See Box 2).
30
31
32
announced limits on low-quality, smog-producing coal
imports.33
Figure 1. Energy Mix and/or Coal Consumption Figure
5 BILLION SHORT TONS
4.3
4.0
4
4.2
3
COAL CONSUMED BY THE
REST OF THE WORLD
COAL PRODUCED BY
CHINA
2
COAL
69%
1
COAL CONSUMED BY CHINA
0
1980
1990
2000
‘10
1980
1990
2000
‘10
Source: Energy Inf
Sources: Richard Martin (2014),35 and Energy Information Administration (2014).36
11
Box 2. Cracking Down on Air Pollution
In response to mounting public outcry over the level of air pollution in major cities,
China’s State Council issued the Airborne Pollution Prevention and Control Action
Plan in September 2013. The Action Plan includes a number of unprecedented
policy measures:
• Decrease coal consumption: Construction of new coal-fired power plants is
banned in the Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou metropolitan areas. Known as
the “key-three-city clusters,” these three major metropolises must also achieve
negative coal consumption by 2017.
• Ramp up regional fine particulates reduction targets: The Beijing-TianjinHebei cluster must reduce the concentration of small particulate matter (PM2.5)
by about 25 percent by 2017, based on the 2012 level. The target reduction
for the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions is 20 and 15 percent,
respectively.
• Mandate nationwide air quality improvements: By 2017, the concentration
of PM10 in China must fall by at least 10 percent compared to 2012.
• Diversify energy sources: The plan pushes the construction of another 150
billion cubic meters of natural gas pipeline capacity by 2015. Nuclear power
installed capacity is slated to reach 50 million kilowatts, raising the share of nonfossil fuels in China’s overall energy consumption from 10 percent in 2013 to 13
percent by 2017.
The Action Plan is not a panacea for China’s air pollution problems, but it indicates
Beijing is serious about decreasing coal’s share in China’s energy mix. In November
2013, the Third Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee listed
environmental protection as an urgent priority. The political momentum continued in
the spring of 2014 with Li Keqiang’s declaration of a “war on air pollution” and the
National People’s Congress approval of the first amendments to China’s Environmental
Protection Law in 25 years. The amendments include higher fines against polluters,
opportunities for public interest litigation in environmental matters, and moves to
strengthen environmental tribunals. These changes are significant efforts to strengthen
enforcement at the local levels, which has been typically weak in China. The high-level
priority to take on the coal problem is underscored by the central government’s pledge
to peak coal consumption before or by 2030 as part of the U.S.-China climate accord
announced at the 2014 APEC Leaders’ meeting.
The enormous water footprint of coal, however, has only recently become an area
12
of interest to Chinese policymakers and international
sixteen coal-power generation bases in China’s west—one of
organizations engaged in energy and environmental issues
the most water-stressed regions in the country.
in China. Freshwater used for mining and processing coal
accounts for the largest share of industrial water use in China,
though statistics on water withdrawals for coal are scarce.
Even partial analyses underscore the magnitude of coal’s
thirst. For example, a World Resources Institute analysis of the
water footprint of China’s coal mining, chemical production,
and conversion, but not water used for power plant cooling or
ash pond control, estimated that if all coal plants planned in
2012 were built, by 2015 China’s coal sector would account
for 10 billion m3 of water withdrawals every year.37 That is
equivalent to one-fourth of all water available for withdrawal
every year from the Yellow River, the third longest river in Asia.
(See Box 3).
China’s 12th Five-Year Plan, the central government issued
social and economic development roadmap for 2011-2015,
calls for the consolidation of the country’s coal production
and coal-fired power generation capacity in the country’s
northwest. In theory the policy would better contain pollution,
promote resource recycling, and safeguard coal miners, who
work in one of the world’s most deadly mining sectors. The
plan calls for fourteen large-scale coal-mining bases and
Based on projections from 2012, Greenpeace China
estimated that by 2015 water demand in the coal sector
(including mining, power, and coal-to-chemicals) in Inner
Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Ningxia will exceed current
water consumption of the region’s entire industrial sector.38
Greenpeace China also predicted water demand in these
and other existing large-scale coal bases will reach a yearly
9.975 billion m3 in 201539—more than one-quarter of the
water volume of the Yellow River available in a normal year.
Approximately two-thirds of this water demand will be for
mining, 11 percent for coal-to-chemicals, and the remaining
22 percent for power plants.40 Some of the water is used
to cool power plants and some evaporates, but much is
returned to the waterways.
The coal sector can recycle water for washing and mining,
however that water still needs to be available for use in the
coal industry, which limits its allocation to other sectors. Coal
companies that operate illegally in protected areas, such as
those denounced by Greenpeace China in Qinghai, or those
violating regulations on wastewater management pose a
further challenge; this translates into additional withdrawals and
pollution which may not be accounted for in official statistics.41
13
Box 3. Thirsty at Every Stage
Coal is the most water-intensive form of energy—water is needed in every stage of its
life cycle. Circle of Blue and Wilson Center Choke Point research found that in 2010,
China’s coal sector used 120 billion cubic meters of water, or about 20 percent of
the 599 billion cubic meters that were used nationally. Other studies have placed the
percentage of water used for coal between 11 and 17 percent, highlighting the need
for more and better data. By 2020 the coal life cycle is expected to use 28 percent of
the 670 billion cubic meters of total water used in the country.42 Water’s role at each
stage is outlined below:
• Mining: During mining, water is predominantly used for cooling equipment,
reducing dust levels, and washing tunnels.
• Washing: Coal is washed to reduce the levels of ash and sulfur and thereby
improve the energy content. Fifty-five percent of all coal in China is now washed,
up from 30 percent a decade ago. Washing coal requires 0.11 to 0.15 cubic
meters of water per metric ton, or 178 million to 238 million cubic meters of
water annually.43
• Generating Power: In the generation stage, power plants withdraw large
quantities of water for producing steam and for cooling. Around 95 percent of
China’s thermal power plants use water for cooling. Though most of the water
remains in the power station and is re-circulated, around 12 percent is lost
through evaporation.44
• Disposing of Coal Ash: Coal ash control is the second most water-intensive
process in the coal lifecycle, following cooling. Half of a coal-fired power plant’s
water use is for controlling coal ash, often in ponds or “irrigated” fields. Runoff
from such ponds contains heavy metals, and sometimes mercury, and can
contaminate surrounding surface and groundwater.
• Coal Conversion: China’s growing coal-conversion sector is also increasing
water use. Depending on the product—diesel fuel, chemicals, or natural gas—for
every metric ton of coal converted, 3 to 15 cubic meters of water is used. China’s
coal conversion program is currently consuming more than 5 billion cubic meters
of water annually, and it will continue to expand as this use of coal is significantly
more profitable than that in coal-fired power plants.45
14
Polluting Too
in reservoirs, hydropower draws water away from other
Besides gulping down water, the coal industry also pollutes
industries less resilient to drought.51 Changing water flows
water that is returned to nearby water bodies, often with
heavy metals like lead and arsenic. Without proper treatment
or recycling, water used in power plant boilers and cooling
systems can be discharged into lakes or rivers. Sludge and
coal ash waste is often disposed in unlined landfills and
reservoirs. Heavy metals and toxic substances contained in
the waste can contaminate drinking water supplies and harm
local ecosystems. Water ecosystems are also threatened
by sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides emitted through coal
burning that create acid rain, which increases the acidity of
sectors and makes downstream communities, farms, and
damage river ecosystems, which can threaten livelihoods
and biodiversity. Finally, the current hydropower boom in
southwest China is also facilitating the growth of energy- and
pollution-intensive industries such as aluminum and steel
production that contaminate water sources for agriculture,
fisheries, and local communities.52 Policymakers in China
have yet to adopt policies addressing the connections
between hydropower and pollution.
lakes and streams.
Natural Gas – The Emerging Energy
Prince
Hydropower – China’s Energy Queen
With large conventional and unconventional gas reserves,
Hydropower has played a significant role in supporting China’s
economic growth over the past few decades. More than
46,000 hydropower dams have been constructed on virtually
every river in the country.46 Approximately half of all dams in
China are used to produce energy; the remainder serve for
a combination of agricultural and flood control uses.47 Today
hydropower is the second largest source of electricity in China
and constitutes 22 percent of the country’s total electricity
generation capacity,48 making it the queen of electricity. By
the end of 2013, the country reached an installed capacity of
280 GW of hydropower—just 10 GW shy of the 12th FiveYear Plan’s 2015 end goal, and well on the way to reach the
government’s targeted 420 GW by 2020.49
Serious droughts have plagued the country’s southwest
over the past five years and are set to limit the expansion
and effectiveness of China’s ambitious dam rush. In early
2010, a prolonged drought gripped the flows of the Mekong,
Salween, and Yangtze rivers, and nearly shut down the 6.4
GW Longtan Dam, China’s second largest. At the peak of
the spring 2011 drought, water levels at the Three Gorges
Dam reservoir were four meters (13 feet) below the minimum
level required to run its turbines effectively.50
China’s natural gas development has been heralded as
a potential game changer to help the country reduce its
dependence on coal. As the government embarks on a
“war on pollution,” Hengwei Liu of the Harbin Institute of
Technology says, “A central part of the battle includes
capping coal use to below 65 percent of total energy
consumption by 2017, down from 69 percent in 2012. To
this end, the central government is boosting the share of
natural gas in the energy mix from 4.7 percent in 2012 up
to an ambitious 10 percent by 2020.” This represents a
178 percent increase in production volume in only eight
years—from 144 billion m3 to 400 billion m3. To put this in
perspective, U.S. natural gas production over the last eight
years—the so-called shale gas revolution—only increased
31.2 percent, says Liu.53
As demand for cleaner fuels in China has soared and
pressure has increased to reduce emissions, Chinese
national oil companies are pursuing a broad strategy in the
gas sector, ramping up investments into conventional natural
gas, tight gas, synthetic natural gas (SNG), and gas imports
to meet the country’s short-term demand. Though it emits
less air pollution than coal-fired power plants, production
of SNG from coal tends to be highly water intensive. Each
While dam reservoirs facilitate irrigation upstream and
cubic meter of SNG produced requires 6 to 12 liters of
play a role in flood control, they also have negative social
water —50 to 100 times more than shale gas, which is often
and environmental impacts. Due to high evaporation rates
criticized for its intensive water use.54 Only two coal-to-gas
15
plants are currently in operation, but four dozen are under
does not encourage the entry of small and experimental
construction or planned, with five of these in arid Xinjiang or
producers—two factors that were critical to accelerating
Inner Mongolia. These areas already have significant water
U.S. shale gas production. In fact, China’s 100 shale gas
shortages, and while these plants may seem like a good
test wells in 2013 were dwarfed by the over 100,000 in the
option in the short run, eventually they could prove both
United States.63 However, this relative slowness has the
damaging to the environment and unwise economically.
upside of giving Chinese regulators time to integrate lessons
55
Water availability may also be a serious constraint to the
much-hyped shale gas development in China. While the
country is estimated to have the world’s largest technically
recoverable shale gas reserves, the current recovery
process requires large quantities of water.56 In the United
States, the amount of water used in hydraulic fracturing
for shale gas varies between 7,570 and 18,927 m3 per
well (See Table 1). With thousands of wells drilled in each
shale play this translates to a significant growth in water
demand.57 In China, reaching a production target of 6.5
billion m3 – China’s stated shale gas output goal for 201558
– would require 13.8 million m3 of water. Although water
use for hydraulic fracturing is modest when compared
to total industrial water usage, this increase in water
particularly on protecting and conserving water.
The Promise of Clean
(but Thirsty) Energy
While China leads the world in coal and hydropower
generation, it has also, since 2010, become the world’s
largest and fastest growing market for nuclear, wind, and
solar power. The 12th Five-Year Plan promotes further
increases in clean energy in China’s energy mix, setting
targets of 11.4 percent of primary energy consumption from
non-fossil sources by 2015 and 15 percent by 2020.64
consumption can have a significant impact locally.59 In 2010,
Renewables
five relatively water-rich provinces in China’s southwest
Though most non-fossil energy sources require far less
(Chongqing, Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan) that
hold 40 percent of the national shale gas reserve, suffered
a six-month severe drought.60 Drier areas have witnessed
competition for water between fracking and other end uses:
officials in northern Shaanxi Province temporarily cut off a
city’s water supply during a shale drilling test.61
to reduce the amount of water used in shale gas operations,
yet the challenge also lies in regulating pollution. Water
used during fracking—often called flow back or produced
water—can contain chemicals from the fracturing fluid, salts
dissolved from the source rock, various minerals, volatile
organic chemicals, and radioactive nucleotides; all of these
pose potential environmental and public health risks.
water than coal-fired power plants, the extensive scale
of planned deployment of renewables translates into
burgeoning water use.65 According to Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory researchers, the projected 813 million
m3 of water needed for wind and solar development from
2010 to 2030 in China is roughly a year’s worth of total
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology is evolving quickly
62
Despite the ambitious targets and accelerated investment
into this sector, the Chinese shale gas industry is still
nascent and growing slowly. This slower rate of shale
16
learned from the United States into their laws and practices,
water supply for all Beijing residents—a population greater
than that of the entire state of New York.66 Water is used
both in the actual production of wind and solar equipment,
and for cleaning panels at solar farms.
The life-cycle water requirement (water use) of an on-shore
wind turbine is 1,767 m3 per MW, and that of solar PV
ranges from 25 m3 per MW to 615 m3 per MW depending
on the specific cell technology.67 Most of the water is used
in manufacturing and production of wind turbines and solar
panels, thus as these two industries grow, so will their
water consumption.
development is linked to the relative lack of geologic
Unlike the molten salt technology recently deployed in the
mapping of China’s basins and a fairly closed market that
United States, China’s concentrated solar power (CSP)
projects are still using water to generate steam and spin
more than a threefold increase in nuclear capacity to at least
turbines. Consequently, they require by far the most water
58 GW by 2020.72
among renewable technologies, with a lifetime average of
Nuclear is perhaps one of the few energy sources in
48,000 m3 of water per MW.68 While CSP is still in its pilot
China for which water has been taken into account in the
project stage, future plans are big—China’s current 50 MW
planning process, likely drawing lessons from shutdowns of
capacity is projected to increase to 1 GW by 2015 and to
nuclear power plants in the United States and Europe due
3 GW by 2020.69 CSP is a promising type of large-scale
to droughts.73 These shutdowns are expected to become
distributed generation that can supply power to local users
even more frequent due to climate change; the likelihood of
and feed into the grid; however water consumption should
extreme drops in nuclear power generation, either complete
be a critical factor determining whether and where the CSP
technologies used in these pilot projects should be scaled up.
Both wind and solar resources are heavily concentrated in
or almost-total shutdowns, is projected to almost triple in the
United State and Europe.74
The 27 nuclear plants that are currently under construction
China’s dry northwest. The four leading provinces for wind
in China are all located on the coast, strategically placed
development—Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Liaoning, and Jilin—
to be near steady water supplies for cooling.75 A standard
all rank in the bottom 10 provinces in terms of water
nuclear plant in China that uses seawater for direct once-
resource availability.70 As development scales up, even
through cycle cooling uses 8 million m3 of water per day,
renewable energy will not be able to escape north China’s
greater than the average water usage in a conventional fossil
water choke point.
fuel plant.76 The central government has reportedly advised
caution in the development of inland nuclear plants, yet it is
Nuclear Power Boom
likely that some of the already planned pilot inland nuclear
plants will be built during the 13th Five-Year Plan period to
While nuclear power only constituted 2.1 percent of all
electricity production in 2013 with 14 GW,71 Chinese officials
have high hopes for nuclear power. China currently has 20
nuclear plants and 28 under construction and hopes to have
test new technologies and safety measures.77 In this light,
the addition of nuclear plants may add to the water stress of
China’s inland regions.
Energy Industry as a Major User of China’s Water*
Water Withdrawal
% of national total
12.3 %
61.4 billion m3
Water Consumption
10.8 billion m3
4.1 %
Wastewater Discharge
5.0 billion m3
8.3%
* Lifecycle water withdrawls
Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration, China Country Analysis, Chao Zhang and Laura Diaz Anadon.
17
Energy for Water
Population and economic growth, as well as climate change, will require China to develop
new and more energy-intensive ways to obtain and use water.
— Wang Dong, Water Researcher, Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning78
With its mismatch between geographic distribution
of water availability and centers of water usage,
China is looking to engineer its way out of future
water shortages—a feat that demands largescale, energy intensive engineering projects. If any
country has the engineering expertise and financial
resources at hand to out-engineer water scarcity,
it would be China. However, there has been only
limited discussion among policymakers of the
tremendous energy costs involved in transporting
water to arid regions.
One 2004 study estimated that electricity accounted
for 33 percent of the cost of producing and
distributing water in China, and since then, the
energy footprint of water diversion and pumping
clean, and use water, for example:
• Saudi Arabia uses up to nine percent of its
total annual electricity energy consumption for
ground water pumping and desalination.80
• In the United States, 13 percent of energy use
is devoted to water extraction, conveyance,
treatment, distribution, end use, and wastewater
collection, treatment, and disposal.81
• California has by far the most energy intensive
water sector in the United States, consuming 19
percent of the state’s energy for the whole cycle
of water use from source to user to treatment.82
recent study has fully calculated the percentage
Re-plumbing the Nation: The
South-North Water Transfer Project
of electricity used for water supply, transfer, and
For centuries, China has excelled at constructing
has risen dramatically.79 To our knowledge, no
treatment in China. Around the world, countries are
using increasing amounts of electricity to move,
Photo courtesy of Circle of Blue © Aaron Jaffe
massive water infrastructure projects—such as
the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal—to irrigate
19
agriculture and tame floods. In 1952, while reflecting on
embedded energy in construction materials—have not been
North China’s dryness, Mao Zedong is quoted as saying
calculated. Another energy intensive piece of the project
that “it would be good to borrow some water from the
that merits scrutiny is the extensive network water treatment
south to the north.”83 Fifty years later, construction began
plants. The low quality of water being pumped out of the
on the largest water-transfer project in human history: the
Yangtze for the eastern route has required the construction
$62 billion South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP).84
of more than 400 sewage treatment plants to clean the
The SNWTP seeks to divert approximately 28 billion m3 of
water before it is transferred to Tianjin. Water pollution
freshwater each year—ten times the volume of the California
control on the eastern route takes up a whopping 44
state water transfer project—for hundreds of miles to
percent of the $5 billion investment.87 There are 474 water
slake the thirst of the North China Plain and its 440 million
treatment plants planned for the central route. However,
people.85 The eastern canal was the first of three major
as of December 2013—half a year before the route was
routes to be completed. The central route opened and
scheduled to come online—only 10 percent of these facilities
began piping water to Beijing in December 2014. The far
had been completed.88 (See Box 4).
western route, which would bring much needed water to the
coal-rich northwest, is still being planned as it will take over
a decade to construct through the high mountains on the
Tibetan plateau.86
The project cost and energy input significantly raised the
price of transferred water. While the higher cost of water
could be viewed as a way to incentivize conservation, it has
actually prompted many northern cities to favor seawater
Moving water demands energy. But statistics of the SNWTP
desalination—an energy intensive water supply strategy that
energy consumption—both for moving the water and for the
is discussed below.
Box 4. China’s South-North Water Transfer Project
While the South-North Water Transfer Project is currently the largest water transfer infrastructure project in the world,
water transfers have long been used to relieve regional water shortages across the China, particularly to rescue the
parched capital, Beijing. Since the 1980s, at least 20 major cross-basin water transfer projects have been built within,
and sometimes between, Jiangsu, Tianjin, Guangdong, Hebei, Shandong, Gansu, Shanxi, Liaoning, and Jilin,89 and
countless more middle- and small-sized projects have connected water sources to urban regions to meet municipal
demand, quench industrial thirst, feed agricultural irrigation, and facilitate pollution reduction.
In the United States, the dry state of California has its own costly water diversion project. The California State Water
Project moves water from the north to the south, sustaining Los Angeles and agriculture where rainfall cannot sustain
current population and rate uses. This lift, the largest in the world, carries 7.4 billion cubic meters of water per year
across 200 kilometers crossing through rich Central Valley agricultural regions and then up nearly 2,000 feet over the
Tehachapi Mountains, consuming 2-3 percent of the entire state’s electricity.
20
Energy for Water
Wastewater Treatment:
The Forgotten Energy Intensive Industry
With diminishing water resources, water treatment and
recycling have become critical for providing clean water
needed for human consumption and ecosystem health.
China’s municipal wastewater treatment rate (%)
100
80
40
0
2006
2013
2015
Moving Water Demands Energy
The South-North Water Transfer Project moves
12 Trillion Gallons
of freshwater each year.
10 times the volume of the California state water project
or equivalent to covering the entire state of Texas with a
2.6-inch layer of water
52%
￥
70%
85%
expected
Chinese local governments do
not consistently turn on wastewater
treatment plants due to high
energy costs.
Eastern Line
Western Line
Central Line
Desalination to “Make” New Freshwater
Removing salt from seawater can require twice as much energy as
wastewater treatment. China is expanding its desalination plans,
seeking to engineer its way out of water scarcity.
Desalination
Wastewater Treatment
To produce
1M3
2.3-4 kWh
of Water
But statistics of the SNWTP energy
consumption – both for moving the
water and for the embedded energy in
construction materials – is unknown.
0.8-1.5 kWh
SOURCES: Pacific Institute, U.S. Energy Information Administration, G.K. Pearce, Office of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Commission of the
State Council.
Sources: Pacific Institute, U.S. Energy Information Administration,
G.K. Pearce, Office of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Commission of the State Council.
21
Following the footsteps of water-stressed countries such as
China’s desalination plants consume 2.3-4 kWh of electricity
Israel and Saudi Arabia, the Chinese government has heralded
to produce one cubic meter of freshwater, making it more than
desalination as another key strategy for China to engineer its
twice as energy intensive as wastewater treatment, which uses
way out of water scarcity. The desalination industry in China
0.8-1.5 kWh/m3 of water.94 The central government’s seawater
marked its start in 2011, with the opening of a desalination
desalination target in 2015—2.2 million m3 per day—would
industrial park in Hangzhou.90 Besides quenching residential
equal about two to four percent of the Three Gorges Dam’s
and industrial thirst along China’s coastline, Chinese planners
total electricity generation. Much of the electricity supplied to
have considered using desalinated water to help the water-
desalination plants is sourced from coal-fired power plants,
stressed coal industry inland.
underscoring that China’s most water-intensive forms of energy
By the end of 2012, 95 seawater desalination plants scattered
are being used to produce more water. (See Box 5).
across China’s coastal provinces produced 778,182 m3 of
Energy use significantly raises the price of desalinated
freshwater every day,91 which represents less than one percent
freshwater. In the coastal city of Zhoushan, energy inputs are
of the country’s daily 1.6 billion m3 of water consumption. With
responsible for 58 percent of the cost of desalinated water.95
plans to increase its seawater reverse-osmosis desalination
Although the cost of China’s desalinated water is on par with
capacity threefold by 2015, the critical question is how to
the global average,96 seawater desalination is fundamentally an
balance growing energy demands from existing consumers
energy intensive, capital intensive, and land intensive way to
and this added industry. Desalination requires more energy than
help address China’s dire water challenges.97
92
most other water supply and treatment options.93 Currently,
Box 5. Desalination: A Fledgling But Growing Industry
China’s 12th Five-Year Plan designates Tianjin, Dalian, and
Qingdao—cities along the northeast coast—as research bases
for seawater desalination. The Beijiang Power and Desalination
Plant, China’s biggest of such plants to date, is located in
the Tianjin Binhai New Area and carries a hefty price tag of
$4 billion.98 With 64 percent state investment, Beijiang is a
cornerstone for an ambitious national desalination industry, in
which China will invest some 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) by
2015.99 This growing infusion of money is aimed at catalyzing
expansion and technology innovation in desalination to satisfy
not only domestic thirst, but also to build up a new major
residential and industrial users paid 4 yuan and 7 yuan per
ton, respectively, while desalinated water was 8 yuan per
ton. According to David Cohen-Tanugi at MIT, desalination is
“multiple times the cost of water-saving measures, with local
governments subsidizing the extra cost.”102 More often than
not, local governments cannot afford to keep subsidizing
desalination. Several desalination plants in China have had
to reduce or shut down their operations; the Beijiang plant
reportedly only produced 18,000 tons of water every day in
technology export industry.
Costly Technology
Pricy Fluid
Another challenge facing the Beijiang and other Chinese
plants is that most of the desalination technology comes from
abroad. Currently only four of the large (capacity larger than
160,000 tons/day) desalination plants in China are built without
foreign technological support—the equipment for the Beijiang
plant is imported from Israel. The price of these machines,
the steep learning curve to train Chinese technicians, and
the inconvenience in maintenance hinder the development of
China’s slow-growing desalination industry. In light of these
hurdles, tapping the significant potential in expanding water
treatment and reuse could be a more cost-effective strategy to
The Beijiang Plant is a model of China’s circular economy policy,
which encourages recycling and reuse of waste resources.
Following this idea, four 1 GW coal-fired plants power the
seawater pump and desalination system that is used to produce
freshwater.100 The concentrated seawater produced after
desalination is then used to produce industrial salt, while the
cinder from the power plants is put into construction materials.101
Even with the waste reuse efforts, desalinated water is more
expensive than China’s current water prices. In 2012, Tianjin’s
22
2012, much lower than its 100,000 ton capacity.103
ensure water supplies.
Wastewater Treatment: The Forgotten
Energy Intensive Industry
While the skies over many Chinese cities are blanketed
in grey smog, the country’s rivers and lakes are turning a
rainbow of colors from pollutants emitted by industries,
crop production, and factory farms. According to Hong
Kong-based China Water Risk, in 2012 the total discharge
of wastewater in China reached 68.5 billion m3, which
is comparable in volume to the annual flow of the Yellow
River.104 It may prove more costly to clean up China’s rivers
and lakes than to clean up the air pollution.
In Yale University’s 2014 Environmental Performance Index,
China ranked 67th out of 178 countries for wastewater
treatment, falling behind other emerging economies such
as Mexico (49th) and South Africa (56th).105 The indicator
tracks how well countries treat wastewater from residential
and industrial resources before releasing the water back
into the environment.106 In September 2013, the State
Council released a municipal infrastructure development
plan that aims for an 85 percent treatment rate by 2015.107
This goal is admirable, but as China lacks infrastructure for
tertiary treatment of solid sludge waste, most wastewater
treatment plants only address secondary treatment of
water. Unchecked dumping of this often toxic sludge has
exacerbated contamination of soil, water, and crops in
China, which is very difficult to clean up. Preventing this
type of toxic pollution justifies increased energy use to
implement tertiary treatment; it also calls for improving
the efficiency of waste management. In the United States,
nearly all wastewater goes through tertiary treatment, which
makes the process very energy intensive, accounting for
up to 30 to 40 percent of the energy consumption in some
and human health.108 Some U.S. cities are exploring off-grid
renewable energy and waste-to-energy options to lower the
energy footprint of wastewater treatment. Wastewater treatment represents a major outlay for local
governments—sometimes as much as a third of the total
budget of a small county or a city.109 Thus, despite the
impressive expansion of wastewater treatment plants over
the past decade, local officials often will turn off these plants
to save money. Without any support from Beijing, many
governments have no choice but to let the treatment plants
sit idle, and let the wastewater pollute other water sources.
In June 2014, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection
(MEP) submitted the draft Water Pollution Action Plan to the
State Council for approval. The final plan includes a $321
billion (2 trillion yuan) investment into this sector, adding
facilities for water and sludge treatment, recycling, and grey
water utilization across the country.110 These long-overdue
steps to improve water quality could result in an increased,
but necessary, energy footprint for water treatment in China.
A Path Forward: Energy for Water
Looking ahead, as water is arguably the most critical
element of the nexus—inexorably involved in both food and
energy development—regulating and monitoring its use
will become increasingly crucial to China’s continued ability
to develop and prosper. Current Chinese policy reflects
a historical tendency to try and engineer away problems,
but as water scarcity and water pollution continue to spur
popular discontent and require ever larger financial and
engineering commitments, the role for conservation and
demand side management will likely become more evident.
U.S. municipalities, but also much safer for the environment
23
Adding Food Choke Points to the Mix
Soil and water are being lost, the land is degrading, crop diversity is falling, natural disasters are frequent, and the excessive and inappropriate use of fertilizer and pesticides mean
that both farms and villages are badly polluted. Agricultural and rural pollution will cause
a range of problems, including with food security.
— Zhang Yang, Central Rural Work Leading Group Office111
Every step of the food production process—from
With rising incomes and rapid urbanization, Chinese
irrigation to processing to distribution—requires both
citizens are adopting more meat-rich diets, which is
water and energy. While often overlooked, the water-
significant because meat requires significantly larger
energy-food chokepoint is intense and growing in
water and energy inputs than vegetables. Urbanites
China’s agricultural sector. Crops and livestock use
consume more meat than their rural counterparts,
62 percent of the China’s total freshwater112 and
so as the urban population more than doubled from
produce 17-20 percent of the nation’s greenhouse
300 million in 1990 to 721 million people last year,115
gas emissions.113 Interviews conducted by Circle of
meat demand has quadrupled.116
Blue in China revealed that industries and cities often
“save” energy by turning off wastewater treatment
facilities; the resulting emissions have polluted
nearly 10 million of China’s 120 million hectares of
cultivated land.114 The agricultural sector is also a
culprit in water pollution with fertilizer, pesticides,
and animal waste runoff ranked as the top polluters
of rivers and lakes in China. Coal development in
north China notably clashes with agriculture for
access to water. (See Box 6).
Photo courtesy of Circle of Blue © J. Carl Ganter
The mass exodus from rural to urban China has
caused a precipitous decline in the number of
farmers in the country. Furthermore, “the food
system is much more fossil-fuel dependent
as human and animal resources are replaced
with diesel-powered equipment and synthetic
fertilizer,” says Fred Gale, senior economist at
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic
Research Service.117
25
To respond to its citizens’ changes in food demand, the
Chinese government has not announced any new official
Chinese government is implementing land consolidation
nationwide land consolidation policy, there is a push to
and accelerating agricultural modernization. According
improve land management irrigation systems, and overall
to Christine Boyle, co-author of a World Bank report on
agricultural productivity. However, in China’s dry north,
China’s water and food security, “modern China has only
agricultural expansion requires pumping more groundwater,
gone through major rural land restructuring twice, in the
which in turn requires more electricity as groundwater
early 1950s and early 1980s.”118 She argues that while the
levels drop.
Photo courtesy of Circle of Blue © J. Carl Ganter
Box 6. Coal and Agriculture: Water Competition or Cooperation?
Extracts from Choke Point: China Reporting by Keith
Schneider and Nadya Ivanova 119
With one of the country’s largest coal bases, 20 power
plants and coal-to-chemical facilities, 20,000 workers, and
buildings in Ningxia. The water that is saved—64 million
cubic meters annually—is transferred from agriculture
to industry.
20 GW electrical generating capacity, the Ningdong Energy
In order to effectively use the water traded, Ningxia
Base in Ningxia Autonomous Region illustrates China’s
electricity generators are adopting cutting-edge water-saving
capacity to fuel the world’s second largest economy, while
technologies. Huadian Power Corporation is operating a 1
also contending with national anxiety about northern China’s
GW, supercritical, air-cooled coal-burning unit at the Lingwu
steadily diminishing freshwater supplies. Agriculture uses
Power Plant. It uses 9,000 cubic meters of water a day
about 93 percent of Ningxia’s water resources, but by the
for industrial operations and cooling, while a similarly sized
end of the decade, agricultural water use is projected to
conventional coal-fired plant would use 44,660 cubic meters
drop to 78 percent in order to provide more water to cities
of water daily, or nearly five times as much. Mines here also
and to coal production, coal combustion, and coal-based
recycle 100 percent of the water needed to process coal,
chemicals.
and the power plants recycle more than 95 percent of the
To reconcile the potential conflict over water between
water used for operations.
energy and agriculture, Ningxia’s energy sector, which
Such water rights trading programs illustrate how setting
uses enormous amounts of Yellow River water, has
a value for water can trigger powerful behavioral changes
begun financing irrigation improvements to conserve
in the energy sector. Such water trading mechanisms are
water for agricultural users. Under this water trading
almost certain to become more common in the basin as
program industries and electricity generators invested in
China’s coal production and consumption rise as water
the remodeling of more than 60 kilometers (37 miles) of
supplies drop.
centuries-old canals and about 170 kilometers (105 miles) of
26
substreams, along with rebuilding more than 2,500 ancillary
Water for Food
70 percent, while with drip irrigation as much as 90 percent
At the heart of China’s quest for food security and food
safety is not only ensuring sufficient water resources, but the
of water used can reach crops.132
Changes in China’s dietary demands, particularly the
availability of clean freshwater.
increase in meat consumption, are further straining its
High and Dry
production to more than triple between 1961 and 2003,
Henan Province, located in central China, is the second
significantly more water than crops; the water footprint
freshwater supplies, which has caused water use in food
from 255 to 860 m3.133 Per calorie, meat production uses
largest food producing region in the country and in 2014
experienced its worst drought in 40 years.
120
Crops withered
of one calorie of beef is twenty times that of one calorie
of cereal.134
and nearly 260,000 people and 80,000 head of cattle were
affected by the lack of water.121 Water scarcity has plagued
much of northern China for decades, but growing pressure
on water has increased the region’s vulnerability to droughts,
which are growing more numerous and lasting longer.122
Figure 2. Water Use in China (By Sector)
100%
90%
China feeds approximately 20 percent of the world’s
1
1
2
11
13
80%
population with just 6.5 percent of the world’s water
resources123 and 9 percent of the world’s arable land.124
70%
The central challenge to China’s food security is a spatial
60%
mismatch between available freshwater and arable land.
50%
China’s north is home to two-thirds of the country’s arable
40%
land but only one-fifth of its water resources,125 so its
30%
farmers are overexploiting aquifers in an area where 70
percent of water used for irrigation is fed by groundwater.126
From the 1950s to the 2000s, groundwater extraction
increased tenfold,127 and as a result, the water table under
24
97
62
20%
10%
0%
the North China Plain is dropping by roughly three meters
per year.128
1949
Agriculture
Rapid industrialization and urbanization over the past 60
years in China has gulped an increasingly larger share of
88
1978
Industry
2011
Residential
Source: Wang, Jinxia, Jikun Huang, and Scott Rozelle (2014)135
the country’s water; the portion used for agriculture has
Multicolored Toxic Rivers
declined dramatically from 97 percent in 1949 to 62 percent
Increasingly, polluted water – from livestock manure,
in 2011.129 (See Figure 2). The government invested to
improve irrigation infrastructure during the 1960s and 1970s,
which helped to raise crop yields and farmer incomes, but
the water efficiency of irrigation in China remains low.130
Only 45 percent of the water withdrawn for agriculture is
actually consumed by the target crops because of poor
infrastructure and use of inefficient irrigation methods.
131
For example, traditional flood irrigation uses water very
inefficiently; sprinklers can raise efficiency of water usage to
industrial runoff, and over-fertilization – bleeds into drinking
water supplies, irrigates the farmlands, and feeds the
fisheries, raising alarm over the integrity of the nation’s
food supply.
While maintaining adequate supplies of water for food
production is increasingly problematic, so too is ensuring
that water is clean and safe. With one-fifth of China’s arable
land contaminated with heavy metals and other toxins136 and
27
three-quarters of urban surface water unsuitable for drinking
in China’s waterways is massive. As a consequence
or fishing,137 public concern over food safety is mounting.138
calculating the growing energy footprint of water use and
Investigative journalism, such as the now-famous 2011
water pollution merits more attention from researchers and
Century Weekly report that 10 percent of China’s rice is
policymakers both in China and worldwide.
contaminated with cadmium from industrial runoff, has
raised awareness on the magnitude of the problem within
the country as well as abroad.139
In 2010, China’s first National Pollution Census found that
agriculture, and livestock in particular, was a greater source
of water and soil pollution than industry.140 The dominance
of livestock pollution stems from the shift in pork production
from a predominantly smallholder farm structure to larger,
confined animal feeding operations, or “factory farms,” that
amplify certain types of environmental damage.141 Currently,
more than one-third of the world’s meat is produced in
China and half of the world’s pigs reside in the country.142
While factory farms are arguably a more efficient use of land,
Fred Gale of the USDA says that the manure created by
such concentrated livestock is now seldom used for fertilizer
as most farms prefer using chemical fertilizers. Nearly 80
percent of the waste from factory farms is released untreated
into rivers and streams, posing grave environmental and
food safety threats.143 Pathogens, heavy metals, and high
concentrations of nitrates hidden in dung can form toxic
algae blooms that create dead zones, killing off fish and
causing fishermen and others who come in contact with the
water to develop skin rashes.
Industrial waste is another threat to China’s food safety, as
waste from heavy metal and mining leaches into soil and
water sources.144 In 2013, the city of Guangzhou found that
roughly half of the rice tested at restaurants had levels of
cadmium, a cancer-causing heavy metal, above the level
deemed safe for human consumption.145 A significant portion
of the cadmium-laced rice was traced back to Hunan
Province, which is one of the top-producing provinces for
both non-ferrous metals and rice. The online news journal
chinadialogue cited a report that Hunan’s non-ferrous
metals industry is responsible respectively for 32 percent, 59
percent, and 25 percent of China’s emissions of cadmium,
mercury and lead.146 Given the magnitude of the problem,
the amount of energy required to clean up the pollution
28
Energy for Food
From growing, processing, and packing to storing and
distribution, energy is a critical input at every stage of the
food system. For example, natural gas and petroleum are
used to manufacture chemical pesticides and fertilizers and
power agricultural machinery, while fossil fuels are burned
to produce electricity for food refrigeration, processing, and
packaging. In an effort to increase food quality, Chinese
food manufacturers, trucks, warehouses, and retailers are
installing new cold storage systems, all of which ramp up
the energy needs for the food sector.147 Although China does
not have comprehensive nationwide data on the total energy
use of the food system, worldwide it is estimated that the
food sector accounts for 30 percent of the world’s total
energy consumption and for 22 percent of total greenhouse
gas emissions.148
As China’s food system moves towards larger farms and
a more supermarket-based distribution system, greater
investments are made in irrigation, machinery, transport, and
infrastructure, all of which require significant energy inputs.149
For example, increased fertilizer use and substituting
mechanization for human and animal labor is improving
production efficiencies but also raising the energy intensity of
China’s agriculture.150
According to Gale, government subsidies to promote
agricultural ‘modernization’ are encouraging China’s food
system to become more energy intensive. Since 2006, the
government has also given farmers general input subsidies
to offset any increases in fertilizer and diesel fuel prices. The
government subsidizes agricultural machinery purchases
by as much as 30 percent, and farmers access irrigation
water and electricity at reduced rates. The downside of
these policies is that farmers have little incentive to invest in
improving the efficiency of their irrigation infrastructure and
electricity usage. In fact, irrigation systems are one of the
government’s largest items of expenditure on agriculture.
Food market vendors also get reduced electricity rates, says
Even though a 2012 World Bank report predicts that it is unlikely
Gale.151
that China will be able to meet its overall 2020 biofuel targets
Facing falling water-table levels, Chinese farmers are using
more energy to pump water from deeper aquifers in order
to sustain irrigated agriculture.152 Irrigation in China releases
33 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to the
entire annual emissions of New Zealand.153
At the consumer level, as China’s burgeoning middle class
demands more refrigerators, microwaves, and dishwashers,
food-related household energy consumption will continue
to rise. From 1995 and 2007, China’s domestic refrigeratorownership numbers jumped from just 7 percent to 95
percent of urban families.154 In 2007, China’s refrigerated
storage capacity was 250 million cubic feet; by 2017, it is
due to lack of non-grain feedstock, poor policy incentives, and
slow growth in advanced technology, China’s use of grains for
biofuels used in the transportation sector is still large in absolute
numbers.160
Even though second and third generation biofuels do not
affect food stocks directly, their production is water intensive.
According to the IEA, 30 percent of the 70 billion m3 of water
needed for energy production globally between now and
2035 will be attributed to biofuel production.161 In this respect,
biofuels may siphon away some of the available water needed
for food crops.
expected that the capacity will be 20 times the 2007 level.155
Ways Forward for Food Choke Points
Refrigerators and freezers account for an estimated 40
As Chinese policymakers implement structural changes
percent of household food-related energy use.156
Food for Energy
Biofuels
While the government views biofuels as a strategic source of
renewable energy, it is cautious not to promote the industry
at the expense of the country’s food security. Because China
is relatively poor in terms of arable land, the government
to facilitate agricultural modernization, there are many
opportunities to reduce the water and energy footprint
in the agricultural sector. Addressing these choke points
will require focusing both on supply-side efficiencies in
production and reducing food and water waste. (See Box 7).
In order for Chinese policymakers to create appropriate and
efficient agricultural and water pricing reforms, they must first
gain a better understanding of virtual water flows between
provinces and in China’s food exports.
instituted a ceiling for first-generation biofuels, which are
made from sugars and vegetable oils found in arable crops.
This cap is set at 1.8 million metric tons annually.157
In the early 2000s, the Chinese government put in place
Water for Food
China’s water use by sector in 2013
Inefficiency in irrigation
Water actually
consumed by the
target crops
biofuel-friendly subsidies and incentives, approving four
plants to use corn and wheat to produce bioethanol.158
Nevertheless, in an effort to reduce the country’s
dependence on imported oil, the National Development and
12%
23%
Water wasted
during irrigation
Reform Commission (NDRC) in 2005 set a target that 15
percent of transportation energy needs should be met with
biofuels by 2020.159 To this end, the government has made
bioethanol use mandatory in six grain producing provinces
since 2008 (Anhui, Guangxi, Heilongjiang, Henan, Jilin, and
Liaoning). Within these provinces, PetroChina and Sinopec
45%
63%
Agricultural
Industrial
55%
Municipal
Ecological
are required to incorporate a 10 percent blend of ethanol into
their petroleum.
Sources: See page 31
29
Box 7. Big Footprint of Waste in China’s Food Sector
Where there is food loss, water and energy are also embedded in that loss.
According to a rough estimate by the United Nations Food and Agricultural
Organization, one-third of food produced in the world is wasted through food
loss and food waste.162 Food loss refers to losses along the supply chain at
the production, post-harvest, and processing stages, while food waste refers
to waste that occurs at the retail and consumer levels.163
While there are no official statistics on food-sector inefficiency in China,
research shows that China suffers from significant postharvest loss.164
Because China’s agricultural system is still largely decentralized with 240
million small-holder farmers, a lot of the work is still done manually, reducing
efficiency and increasing processing time.165 For example, over 80 percent of
grain is unloaded and loaded by hand,166 and last year China lost 35 million
tons of cereal grains because of inadequate loading and handling systems;167
this represents a significant waste of not only food, but also water.
There are encouraging signs of increasing awareness of food waste—many
restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai are putting up signs reminding customers
not to waste food. As part of Xi Jinping’s “eight rules” (ba xiang gui ding), the
Chinese leadership has ordered crackdowns on lavish government banquets
partly to reduce food waste. In light of the magnitude of the problem in
China, continued public awareness campaigns and improving supply chains
for distribution would serve an important purpose in reducing food waste and
its related water and energy consumption.
30
Energy and Water for Food
At every step, food production—from growing, processing, packing to storing and
distribution—requires water and energy, putting increasing pressure on China’s
already-scarce resources.
The “Juicy” Meat Industry
Pumping to
Rock Bottom
Rising meat consumption is further straining its
freshwater supplies.
Facing declining water table
levels, Chinese farmers are using
more energy to pump water from
deeper aquifers in order to
sustain irrigated agriculture.
Total Meat Production (Million tons)
Agricultural Water Usage (Trillion m3)
10
388
358.6
358
366.4
360
8
66.1
6
69.4
70.9 68.7
366.3
72.8
372.3 368.9 374.4
76.5
79.3 79.7
390
83.9 85.4
Also, don’t forget there are climate costs to the
price of irrigation.
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
CO2
Water requirement for producing a kilogram of...
33 million
tons emissions
per year
Beef
15 m3 of water
17%-20%
of China’s
equivalent to the
greenhouse gas entire emissions
emissions
of New Zealand
Refridgerators Have Big Appetites
for Electricity Too
As China’s burgeoning middle class demands more refrigerators, microwaves,
and dishwashers, food-related household energy consumption will continue
to rise.
Pork
4.9 m3 of water
Domestic refrigerator ownership (%)
7% of urban families
1995
95%
2007
Refrigerators and
freezers account for
an estimated
Chicken
3.9 m3 of water
40%
of household foodrelated energy use.
Sources: FAO, Ministry of Water Resources of China, The Guardian, National Bureau of Statistics of China, Junlian Zhang, New York Times.
31
Insights from Choke Point Issues in
the United States
The U.S. Department of Energy can bring its strong science, technology, and analytic
capabilities to bear to help the Nation move to more resilient energy-water systems.
— U.S. Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz 168
Chinese policymakers, research institutes, and
to address water-energy-food confrontations in the
environmental NGOs are increasingly recognizing
United States.
the importance of the water-energy-food nexus,
which has been catalyzed in part by the Wilson
Center/Circle of Blue Choke Point: China research
and convenings. This nascent trend opens up new
opportunities for Sino-U.S. collaboration building
on nearly 44 years of energy and environmental
cooperation by government agencies, NGOs, and
research institutes. Below we provide an overview of
how the United States is starting to address growing
choke point issues, which will lay the groundwork
for potential steps China could take and highlights
areas in which the two countries can collaborate.
This overview of choke point activities by U.S.
government agencies, NGOs, research centers, and
businesses is by no means exhaustive, but is meant
to highlight a range of organizations which have
been helping to lead integrated research and action
U.S. Government Choke Point
Activities
• U.S. Department of Energy Water-Energy
Roadmap Program: In 2008 Congress
tasked the Department of Energy (DOE)
with undertaking a detailed scoping study to
understand how water-energy nexus issues
were challenging the United States.169 DOE
invited Sandia National Laboratory to form a
Water-Energy Nexus team—made up of national
laboratory and university scientists—to build
a National Energy-Water Roadmap Program.
The subsequent research and convenings
were integral in assessing the vulnerabilities
in the U.S. energy system from major choke
33
point trends and evaluating the effectiveness of existing
use of alternative sources of water and coproduction of
programs within DOE and other federal agencies in
water with carbon capture, utilization, and storage; and
addressing water and energy linked issues.
(3) policy and regulatory developments in APEC member
• U.S. Department of Energy’s Water-Energy
Tech Team (WETT): In the fall of 2012, DOE initiated
the department-wide WETT to increase awareness
of the water-energy nexus. In June 2014, WETT
published a report—Water-Energy Nexus Challenges
and Opportunities—that frames the integrated waterenergy challenges facing the United States and sets six
priorities for coordinating research between DOE and its
partners.170
• U.S. Engagement with APEC on Water-Energy
Initiatives: The United States is working with other
countries in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) forum to develop modeling capabilities to
examine water use in energy production and energy
use in water production, and identify potential
vulnerabilities—especially in urban areas. The project,
co-sponsored by the United States, China, and
Australia, and carried out under APEC’s Energy Smart
Communities’ Initiative, aims to develop standardized
definitions and data collection strategies for waterenergy nexus issues and to gather relevant data from
APEC economies. These activities will help develop a
baseline understanding of the energy-water nexus in
the region, and identify water-energy data gaps and
potential vulnerabilities the countries face from waterenergy confrontations. The goal is to help prioritize
strategies to mitigate energy-water nexus impacts and
encourage more efficient and sustainable use of energy
and water.171 APEC’s Energy Working Group’s Expert
Group on Clean Fossil Energy also started looking
into the energy-water nexus, particularly coal-based
energy systems. This project—cosponsored by the
United States, China, Japan, and Australia—will share
information on: (1) developments to make coal-based
energy systems, including power generation and
conversion to synthetic natural gas and chemicals, more
efficient and less-water intensive; (2) recovery and reuse
of water from coal-based energy production, including
34
economies related to the water-energy nexus for coalbased energy production.
Regional and Basin-level Choke Point
Planning and Action
• Great Lakes Energy-Water Nexus (GLEW)
Initiative: This initiative developed new metrics to
measure the impact on aquatic resources of water used
for power generation. GLEW also examined policies that
govern electric energy markets, utilities, and power plant
siting, to identify opportunities for better integrating
environmental resource impacts into future energy policy
and regulatory efforts. With support from the Great
Lakes Protection Fund, this 21-month effort was led
by the Great Lakes Commission under the guidance
of a diverse Project Advisory Team. Principal project
partners included: Cornell University, Sandia National
Laboratories, the Great Lakes Environmental Law
Center, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center.172
• Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC): Since
1961 the DRBC has been charged with water resource
planning, development, and regulation in a river basin
that supplies water to more than 15 million people,
or roughly five percent of the U.S. population, across
Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Core mandates of the commission’s compact are to
apportion water equitably, balance competing demands
on river flows, and maintain high water quality in the
main stem Delaware River. The water-intensive shale
gas development boom targeting the Marcellus Shale
formation poses significant new water quality and
quantity challenges for the basin. The DRBC has played
a central role in engaging community members, NGOs,
and the shale gas industry to find solutions to protect
the basin’s waters, which are vital to the economic
future and quality of life of residents in all four states.
Research and Nongovernmental
Organization Choke Point Activities
•
Pacific Institute: The California-based NGO, Pacific
Institute, has conducted extensive research on the
energy usage of California’s water diversion project.
A member of our China Water-Energy team, Heather
Cooley, leads the Institute’s work examining the energy
footprint of water and identifying strategies to reduce
water-energy conflicts in the United States and abroad.
• Union of Concerned Scientists: This nonprofit
science advocacy organization has published several
reports that offer in-depth analyses of the connections
between energy and water, looking at how much water
is used by power plants fueled by natural gas, nuclear,
and coal. They published the 2011 report, Freshwater
Use by U.S. Power Plants: Electricity’s Thirst for a
Precious Resource.173
•
Alliance to Save Energy: In 1997, the Washington
D.C.-based NGO launched the Watergy program to
address the link between water and energy in municipal
water and wastewater treatment systems. The Alliance
offers a portfolio of services that include energy
assessments, training, outreach, and advocacy with
electric and gas utilities, as well as financing mechanism
research and policy analysis. Since 1997, the Watergy
program has designed and carried out projects in
over 100 cities across the globe and has saved more
than 20.8 million kWh of electricity and $5 million in
operating costs.
U.S. Business Choke Point
Investments
Water has become a significant concern for many
businesses.174 Corporate leaders are increasingly aware
of how choke point issues pose serious risks to their
businesses. In 2013 when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Foundation held a meeting to help companies better
manage their energy and water use, companies expressed
shortages.” The next year the Foundation published the
report, The Energy-Water-Food Nexus: Insights for the
Business Community.
According to a survey by Vox Global and Pacific Institute, 60
percent of companies surveyed indicated that water would
negatively affect profitability within the next five years. And
80 percent of the respondents said that water availability
would affect companies’ choice of where to locate their
facilities. Some noteworthy examples of U.S. companies
prioritizing choke point issues include:
• Coca-Cola: The global beverage and food giant
has set a 2020 goal to safely return to communities
and nature an amount of water equal to what the
company uses in its finished beverages and production
processes. The company is increasingly addressing
water stewardship in the context of the water-energyfood nexus in its work with the World Resources
Institute and 2030 Water Resources Group.
• Dow Chemical: Dow Water and Process Solutions,
a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, has
published several reports, including The Sustainability
Challenge: Meeting the Needs of the Water-Energy
Nexus175 and China’s Thirst for Water. The company
uses a concept known as valuation of ecosystem
services to account for and incorporate the value of
nature in its business decisions.176
• General Electric (GE): The multinational
conglomerate has made a company-wide effort to
improve the water-efficiency of its operations, focusing
especially on its plants located in water-scarce areas
like Bangalore, India. The corporation and one of its
subsidiaries have also committed $20 million to building
infrastructure and healthcare in Africa, which includes a
program to improve access to clean and safe water in
hospitals by installing water-scarcity systems.177 GE has
also been a supporter of the World Resources Institute
Aqueduct project, which began its water-energy risk
analysis tool building in China.
that their “most pressing challenge was to create business
operations that are resilient to energy, water, and food
35
Finding Solutions in Connections
We need to find a new growth model. This is especially true in the water and energy
areas…This is the choke point for the country.
— Zhang Yongsheng, Senior Fellow at the Development Research Center of the State
Council of China179
With China’s rapid urbanization and industrialization,
its water-energy-food choke points are tightening
and Chinese policy, research, and civil society
communities have not yet coalesced around a
unified and comprehensive strategy to address
these growing challenges. The country’s power
and agricultural sectors are competing for an
ever-decreasing water supply, and at the same
time, more energy is needed to move and treat
its increasingly polluted waters. China is facing a
confluence of pressures that are threatening its
already vulnerable resources, catalyzing risks to its
water, energy, and food security.
However, just as there can be a negative domino
effect in the interlinked competition for water, energy,
and food, there can also be a positive multiplier
effect when all three are effectively managed
together. Specifically, efficient management practices
for one of these resources could have significant cobenefits for the others. For example:
• Energy efficiency reduces water use in the
energy sector, leaving more water available for
food production and other sectors;
• Preventing water pollution lowers the energy
requirements of treatment plants and avoids
contamination of food crops;
• Promoting less water-intensive crops and
lowering food waste help to save significant
amounts of water and energy and enhance rural
livelihoods;
• Incorporating the cost of water in electricity
production and reforming energy pricing policies
accordingly could be an effective market tool to
promote more efficient energy use.
Recognizing the connections between these different
issues creates opportunities for new thinking on
policies, regulations, incentives, and investments for
more aggressive resource conservation. Through our
37
Choke Point: China research, exchanges, and interviews, we
research, and civil society communities to take action to
have identified three priority action areas that Chinese policy,
reduce water-energy-food confrontations and improve
research, and civil society organizations could focus on to
management of these resources. Box 8 outlines some
build a strong foundation for action on water-energy-food
examples of data and analysis priorities:
management:
1. Identify the magnitude of choke point issues in
China.
2. Optimize water-energy-food nexus management.
3. Strengthen China-U.S. collaborative networks.
3
Action Area #1. Identify the Magnitude
of Water-Energy-Food Issues
Integrating the management of water, energy, and food is
a significant hurdle for China due to the paucity of baseline
data, particularly concerning the amount of energy needed
for the water sector. Some of the data exists, but is spread
across different agencies and research centers that do not
generally collaborate or do not use the same methodology. To
overcome this fragmented data management, China needs
to create permanent research hubs and networks to collect
baseline data and analyze the complete life cycle use of
water, energy, and food, by sector and by region. Below are
recommendations on how to build information clearinghouses
1
on choke point research and dialogue in China.
Create permanent centers and research networks
for multidisciplinary choke point research. To help
the collection of baseline data on choke point issues, it
will be valuable for the Chinese government to assemble
a crosscutting R&D team made up of top researchers
from energy, water, and agriculture policy think tanks
and universities. Ideally, a relevant Chinese government
agency, for example the NDRC, Ministry of Water
Resources, or Ministry of Science and Technology could
provide some of the initial funding for this data collection
and research. The National Energy Administration under
the NDRC has begun to study water-energy issues.
2
38
Thus, the NDRC could be the logical hub for further
choke point research.
Collect baseline data. China urgently needs
more complete baseline data on water and energy
interactions. Filling such vital data gaps will inform more
accurate projections in models guiding Chinese policy,
Generate water-energy-food models. Drawing
from challenges and lessons learned in the U.S., China
could develop models that help policymakers better
understand the current situation and project future
needs. Models should:
• Integrate the management and planning of water,
energy, and food resources, and consider climate
change, population growth, urbanization, economic
development and technology evolution;
• Evaluate how smart agriculture techniques could lower water
use and maintain yields in the most cost-effective manner;
• Inform the timing and severity of choke point issues;
• Evaluate the efficacy and unintended consequences of
alternative mitigation and adaptive strategies to deal
with choke points;
• Create tools that help household users understand the
energy and climate impacts of their daily water use,
looking to the Pacific Institute’s Water-Energy-Climate
Calculator as an example;183
• Equip energy-water policymakers and managers with
tools to help them evaluate energy-water interactions—
examples of this include the Brookhaven National
Laboratory model for New York City Energy-Water
analysis184 or the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory Regional Energy Deployment System model.
These models have incorporated water constraints into a
long-term capacity-expansion model for the deployment
of electric power generation technologies and
transmission infrastructure throughout the United States.
China’s ambition to maintain prolonged growth in a resourceconstrained environment calls for a new, proactive model of
decision-making that sets development priorities according
to local water conditions. The data, research, and modeling
discussed above will help to establish a choke point framework
to help central and local policymakers and researchers better
evaluate tradeoffs and costs of various water, energy, and food
production and conservation goals. With sufficient data and
modeling Chinese experts will be able to:
• Establish joint planning exercises among water, energy,
and food managers at all levels of government in China;
• Undertake a comprehensive, nationwide assessment
of hydropower and its impacts on water flows and
• Coordinate data collection across key government and
research entities. For example, in the United States,
the U.S. Energy Information Administration and U.S.
Geological Survey were required to set standards on
how to collect uniform data on water usage by power
plants as a result of the Department of Energy’s push to
better manage the water-energy nexus.
pollution;
Box 8. Water and Energy Research Agenda for China
Energy for Water Data
• Calculate water intensity (differentiating
withdrawal and consumption) of all power
generation technologies.
•
Conduct lifecycle water use analysis of energy
production, manufacturing, food production,
processing, and distribution. As the world’s factory,
it would be valuable to estimate how much water is
embedded in products China imports and exports (e.g.,
through importing water-intensive crops and energy,
and exporting clothes, electronics, and fuels). Life
cycle analysis of energy and water flows used in food
processing is also a critical gap and this type of tracking
could also be used to strengthen food safety oversight.
• Estimate national, provincial, and city data for
energy that is used for conveying and treating
water. This would include pumping water for irrigation,
water transfers, and wastewater and desalination plants.
Water for Energy Data
• Water for Coal. As China’s main source of electricity,
securing accurate data on coal’s water footprint is critical.
Currently, the few estimates made by international and
Chinese organizations vary considerably, in part because of
differing measurement criteria and also because accurate
data is often hard to come by in such a rapidly developing
and vast country. Some estimates also do not take into
account the entire lifecycle of coal production; rather they
focus only on water use at the point of electricity generation.
For example, one recent Ministry of Water Resources report
cited China’s total industrial water withdrawals as 22.5
percent of the national total, and indicated that thermal
power with once-through cooling systems accounted for 7.5
percent of the national total water withdrawals. However, this
estimate for thermal power focuses exclusively on the plantlevel use, rather than a full assessment of the supply chain
and does not include coal-to-gas or coal-to-liquids industries
in the estimate.180
• Water for fuels. Studying the amount of water used in
fuel extraction (particularly for coal and natural gas) and
production (especially SNG and oil) combined with basinwide water surveys will be vital in managing choke points.
Baseline Data to Assess Choke Point Risks
• Gather and analyze provincial and/or regional
water-energy data. Subnational water-energy nexus
analyses will be vital to make assessments on the future
water needs in key regions of the country. The Pacific
Institute’s Water for Energy: Future Water Needs for
Electricity181 and Energy Down the Drain182 are useful
models for studies that quantify energy requirements for
water systems at regional levels.
• Examine supply chain water risks. These risks
include mapping out the magnitude of water pollution
and waste created by China’s energy and industrial
supply chains, as well as understanding the problems
energy and other industries face in accessing clean
water.
• Calculate the co-benefits of addressing choke
point issues. This will require estimating how
decreasing the energy footprint of water could lower air
pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, among other
benefits.
39
Action Area #2. Optimize WaterEnergy-Food Nexus Management
China’s coal plants and coal producers in early 2014.
Increasing efficiency in the management of water, energy,
and municipalities would be a vital step to protecting the
and food—often referred to as demand-side management
country’s vulnerable water resources.
Expanding and rigorously enforcing water efficiency
targets in the energy sector as well as in other industries
strategies—warrants greater attention in China. Policies
• Reducing water pollution through cleaner
for improving efficiency should target water use in energy
energy. China is also losing considerable
water to pollution. The new top-down measures
production, electricity generation, and consumer end use.
Policies should also address energy efficiency in water
from the 2013 Pollution Action Plan to the amended
management, treatment, distribution, and end use operations.
Environmental Protection Law represent important
The water pricing reform announced in 2014 by the NDRC
steps in improving pollution control to protect
could be a good first step in this direction.185 The push by
China’s water quality. Filling the governance gaps to
Chinese policymakers to prioritize energy efficiency in the past
promote accountability at the local level will be crucial
two Five-Year Plans has led to significant energy savings,
to enforcement of existing water pollution control
as well as improvements in the efficiency of irrigation and
regulations. The high-energy costs can hinder water
reducing water pollution.186 Targets included decreasing
treatment—so much so that tertiary treatment is almost
energy intensity by 16 percent and obtaining 11.4 percent
nonexistent in China. This treatment gap is saddling
of total energy from non-fossil energy sources.187 There are
the country with mountains of often toxic sludge. To
many opportunities to make China’s economy even more
1
address this energy burden that hampers wastewater
energy efficient – saving energy ultimately saves water.
treatment, the central and provincial governments
could:
Standards and Efficiency Codes for Water and
Energy: Another way that government can help
1) Prioritize off-grid distributed renewable energy
incentivize energy and water-saving consumption
generation for wastewater treatment;
patterns would be to implement and enforce standards
and codes of conduct. For instance, California has
set maximum flow rates for showerheads, toilets, and
other appliances and created rebates to encourage
individuals and industry to switch out older inefficient
appliances and fixtures for water or energy saving
2
ones.188 Moreover, there are significant opportunities
for improving lighting, heating, and cooling efficiency in
Chinese buildings.
3
Water Efficiency and Pollution Control Priorities:
• Reigning in energy’s water footprint. While
the Chinese government has been quick to create
comprehensive policies and investments to promote
energy efficiency and the development of renewables, it
has lagged behind in its response to the country’s water
wastage, particularly in the energy sector. The 12th
Five-Year Plan for Energy Development highlighted for
the first time that the water footprint of coal is an issue
for the government to begin addressing. The Ministry
of Water Resources issued water allocation rules for
40
2) Deploy biodigesters on factory farms to prevent
animal waste from entering river and lakes.
Increase incentives for end-use conservation by
industries and consumers:
• Continue to raise efficiency targets. A recent
study by the Natural Resources Defense Council
and Tsinghua University concluded that during the
11th Five-Year Plan period, the water saved through
efficiency programs across China’s entire power sector
could satisfy Beijing’s water demand for three years.189
Energy efficiency’s positive implications for water
management should be further emphasized. Conversely,
water conservation could prove more appealing if the
energy savings are compared to the costs of building
desalination and water transfer infrastructure.
• Raise water prices and improve tracking of
water use. Although water prices in China have
gradually increased in the past twenty years, water is
still underpriced compared to other countries, especially
point research and technology development by teams
in the agricultural sector.190 Raising fees and expanding
of university, industry, government, and NGO scientists,
pilot water rights trading markets would promote water
engineers, and policy experts. Potentially fruitful areas of
conservation and efficiency.
joint work include:
• Interactive mapping of virtual water flows in
• Create public awareness campaigns. Besides
the economy. Such mapping could use models from
targets and pricing, highly visible public awareness
existing studies193 to make it easier for policymakers
campaigns on energy-saving, food-saving, and
to comprehensively visualize water in production,
water-conservation could also be a powerful tool, as
consumption, and trade stages both within and beyond
evidenced by Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming’s
each country’s borders.
heralded involvement in a campaign against shark
fin soup, which likely contributed to the 70 percent
• Enhance joint research and development into
reduction in sales.191
water and energy saving technologies. For
• Educate local officials about choke point
example, a recent study of 11 Chinese provinces
found that the use of improved irrigation management
linkages. Water conservation and pollution control
measures such as flow metering, irrigation scheduling,
regulations have been on the policy agenda for many
or simply regular maintenance can reduce the amount
years in China, but enforcement has generally been
of pumped water by up to 20 percent.194 Many of
weak. Inclusion of water-energy-food nexus classes and
training in Party schools, both at the central and local
levels would provide officials with a basic foundation of
how integrated water-energy-food nexus management
could be used to alleviate water and energy stresses
while working towards greater food security.
Action Area #3. Strengthen Collaborative
Networks Between China and the United
States
2
As the two largest energy producers and users in the world,
the inter-linkages among water, energy, and food are having
great impacts on the economic and ecological health of the
United States and China. The establishment of a water-energy nexus program under the existing Clean Energy Research
Center (CERC) mechanism, which is slated to begin in
October 2015, is a positive development. The program will
receive $50 million over five years and aims to catalyze joint
research to address water-energy challenges facing both
countries.192 The funding will be evenly shared by the two
countries through a mix of government and private sources.
Other recommendations for collaboration include:
1
these technologies have been already launched as pilot
programs at the local level.
Build subnational collaboration. In the United States
some of the most creative and innovative solutions
to water-energy-food management have emerged
from city governments and regional organizations.
Chinese cities are already being pushed to quickly
address increasingly severe energy, water, and pollution
challenges and therefore represent ideal partners for
testing new policies and pilots to increase their water,
energy, and food resilience.
• Incorporate water into local energy planning. In
the United States, Arizona and Colorado have moved
to the forefront of incorporating water into state energy
planning. For example, the Arizona state electricity
regulatory agency has included water consumption in
its electric resource planning for over a decade. The
agency has denied permits for proposed natural gas
power plants to protect groundwater supplies and
encouraged the state’s largest electric company to
build new solar farms to lower water use.195 Another
example is the Watts to Water Program, a metro-wide
Establish a bilateral water-energy-food nexus
sustainability program based in Denver, Colorado
research center that focuses on mutual choke
dedicated to the reduction of energy and water
point challenges in both countries. The new CERC
water-energy program provides a platform for joint choke
consumption. Buildings and businesses in the city that
opt-in share their energy and water consumption data
41
in exchange for complimentary technical support from
will face increased risks as energy and food production
Energy Star technicians, and they receive rebates to
squeeze the country’s water supplies.200 Therefore it
make building operations more efficient and materials
will be important to engage the private sector to help
that will lower their water and energy consumption.196
raise awareness on how water and energy waste is
• Encourage city-to-city exchanges. Cities often
lack data on how water, energy, and food flows interact
in their communities. Generating such metrics would help
guide leaders identify where they can make the greatest
impact. For instance, in some regions, pipeline leaks and
uneven pressure means that significant water, and thus
energy, is lost in distribution. As an indication of economic
4
loss, 50 percent of London’s municipal water cost is
non-revenue; in China, that number is 20-30 percent in
large cities and 6-7 percent in smaller or newer cities.197
U.S. and Chinese cities are participating in growing
networks focused on urban climate collaboration (e.g.,
C-40), creating smart cities, and even some U.S.-China
sister city programs are becoming more committed to
environmental issues. Brookhaven National Laboratory
paired up eight U.S. cities with seven Chinese cities for
collaboration on energy and environment and led a U.S.China Joint EcoCities project involving six Chinese cities
and four U.S. cities.198 Recently, the Ports of Los Angeles
and Shanghai have formulated an EcoPartnership under
a program managed by the U.S. Department of State and
the NDRC.199 Cities in the United States and China that
face similar water-energy challenges, such as port cities
in Oakland, CA and Shenzhen or Guangzhou, could build
business and policy dialogues under existing sister city or
3
EcoPartnership programs that share knowledge on best
practices on lowering their energy and water footprints.
Expand engagement with civil society, multilateral,
and business communities. Box 8 provides an
overview of some water-energy-food-related initiatives that
have been launched in China over the past two years.
These nongovernmental players could be valuable to
help bring business, community, and policy stakeholders
together for choke point research, projects, and policy
development. NGOs can help shine a light on the
impacts of unsustainable water use on communities and
encourage more transparent and participatory decision
making in future project development. As industrial
water withdrawals rise in China, Chinese businesses
42
exacerbating risks to sustainable business.
Incorporate water-energy-food programming in
the U.S.-China Agriculture and Food Partnership
and pursue further trade opportunities in
agribusiness between the two countries.
• Trade may offer the most sustainable way forward for
China to meet its domestic grain demand and would
also create an opportunity for U.S. agricultural exports.
China’s growing imports of grain and other foods are
driven in part by water shortages and represent an import
of “virtual” water. Greater understanding of the role of
trade, with respect to managing virtual water flows interprovincially and internationally, will be critical for China’s
food and resource future. The United States has arable
land that could more sustainably meet China’s meat
demand if the right policies are in place to incentive such
investments. According to Fred Gale, senior economist at
the United States Department of Agriculture, “Importing
meat from more land abundant countries, like the United
States…is probably going to reduce the environmental
footprint of Chinese people eating more meat compared
to China being self-sufficient, producing all its own pork
and all its own chickens.”201
• In April 2014, the U.S. agribusiness community launched
the U.S. Agriculture and Food Partnership as the key
public-private sector coordinator for bilateral food and
agriculture cooperation between the two countries. The
partnership has seven key task forces including: crop
chain, livestock chain, machinery, food processing,
investment, financial services, and food safety. Particularly
under the livestock chain and food safety task forces,
there is a ripe opportunity for U.S. agribusiness to
reevaluate their supply chain practices in China from a
water-energy-food management perspective and in doing
so, also work with China’s agri-food industries to introduce
best practices that conserve these crucial resources and
limit pollution.
Box 9. Examples of Emerging Choke Point Work in China
• The Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum
is continuing its Choke Point: China work with Circle
of Blue and other U.S. and Chinese partners to
expand research and dialogue on water-energy-food
confrontations in China and to continue identifying
opportunities for U.S.-China collaboration. The next
major initiative is the Choke Point: Port Cities that is
investigating the water-energy choke points in Shenzhen
and Oakland, California, with an eye on the pollution
•
transparency initiatives and citizen pollution monitoring
of coal and heavy industries.
• Chinese Universities and think tanks are beginning to
dive into choke point analyses. BP-Tsinghua Clean
Energy Center was the first Chinese university
research center to assess the water footprint of China’s
coal production cycle. On the flip side of the water-
reduction co-benefits.
energy confrontation, Nanjing University Center
The World Bank’s Thirsty Energy Initiative
the first Chinese research group to begin estimating
recently began working in China to design and
implement an integrated water and energy model for
the National Energy Administration (NEA), as part
of the institution’s 2016-2020 National Energy Five-Year
Plan. Besides NEA, the Bank will work with the Institute
for Water and Hydropower Resources—which works
directly with China’s Ministry of Water Resources—to
ensure that the country’s energy planning tools properly
incorporate water constraints and investment required
to produce power and cooling in the major energy
basins in the country. Preliminary results are expected to
be ready by February of 2015 in time to be used for the
design of the 13th Five-Year Plan.
• The Natural Resources Defense Council’s China
Coal Consumption Cap Plan and Policy Research,
which is bringing together China’s leading energy
and environmental think tanks to conduct in-depth
research and dialogues, has incorporated water into
its Coal Consumption Cap Co-Benefits research.
This broad-ranging research work will produce policy
recommendations and concrete action plans on
•
of coal on air and water through local industry
for Environmental Management and Policy is
and modeling the energy footprint of water in China,
focusing in part on how conserving urban water can
decrease pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.203
China’s Energy Resources Institute under the
National Development and Reform Commission has
undertaken some initial analyses of the water footprint
of different energy technologies in China.
• The World Resources Institute (WRI) Water
Team in Beijing is reviewing the policies and regulations
on energy and water resources management at the
national and provincial levels in China with the goal
of identifying gaps that pressure water ecosystems
in the country. WRI’s Aqueduct project has created
online maps and tools to help companies, investors,
governments, and communities better understand
where and how water risks are emerging around the
world. Their initial prototype tool focused on the Yellow
River in China.
• Greenpeace China continues its Thirsty Coal
campaign, undertaking on-the-ground research and
decreasing coal consumption in China.
advocacy on how expanding coal bases in north
China Water Risk, a Hong Kong-based NGO, has
A 2014 Thirsty Coal report on pollution and excessive
expanded its water risk research and reporting heavily
into coal-water confrontations since 2012—most
notably with the No Water No Power: Is There Enough
Water to Fuel China’s Power Expansion report for HBSC
and an extensive series of stories and infographics on
the coal-water link.202
• The Pacific Environment and Waterkeeper
Alliance are working with grassroots environmental
groups across China to reduce the country’s reliance
on coal by engaging in public outreach on the impacts
China are exacerbating China’s current water crises.
water extraction from Shenhua coal-to-liquids plants
highlighted the growing groundwater depletion and
contamination problems linked to coal production in
China’s north.
• In the spring of 2014, the World Coal Association—
based out of the Shenhua Science and Technology
Institute—published a special issue on coal and water
that featured several articles focused on China by not
only Shenhua researchers, but also by WRI and the BPTsinghua Clean Energy Center.204
43
China’s Opportunities to Address the
Choke Points
To reconcile the water-energy confrontations, the only way out is to manage the whole thing in a more
efficient way—from the design, through the construction, to the operation.
— Ma Jun, Director, Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs and Wilson Center Global Fellow205
China’s ability to manage its tightening water-energyfood choke points may seem like a battle of Goliathan
proportions. Water pollution and shortages are
shrinking the amount of cropland that can be used
safely for food production; this has pushed China
dangerously close to the government’s “red line” of
120 million cultivated hectares required to ensure its
grain security. Northern cities are increasingly thirsty;
Beijing was estimated to be 515 million m3 short of
water for the year 2011, and even with the SNWTP
the deficit will still be 190 million m3.206 Meanwhile, the
country’s coal powered generation capacity is set to
rise to 1,250 GW by 2020.207 Even with the new fleet of
efficient coal plants, this increase in capacity translates
to roughly 34 billion m3 of water used annually by
2020.208 Chinese policymakers have only recently
begun to recognize these choke points, but as this
Roadmap has outlined, some progressive steps are
already being taken, such as the recent announcement
of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center’s
water-energy nexus program. Here are some other
promising trends to build on:
China has shown that when there is the
political will, changes will be enacted,
though implementation lags. The central
government has earmarked $608 billion (4 trillion yuan)
this decade to clean up its rivers and lakes, fix its water
supply systems, and boost water conservation.209
Chinese officials are also pushing policies to raise
water efficiency in the agricultural sector. In the energy
sector, the government now requires use of dry cooling
on new ultra-super critical coal-fired power plants in
the northern provinces, making them among the most
water-efficient power plants in the world.
Improvements in China’s infrastructure offer
more conservation opportunities. Beijing
is erecting new buildings that include gray water
systems to deliver recycled wastewater for washing
cars and flushing toilets.210 The city has reduced
industrial water use by more than 40 percent, is set to
increase its wastewater recycling rate to 75 percent
and sewage treatment rate to 98 percent by 2015.211
Since 1995, Shanghai has spent $8.1 billion (50.3
45
billion yuan) to construct a network of 52 sewage plants that
now treat nearly 80 percent of the city’s wastewater.212 If the
Shanghai municipality expands its rooftop solar investments
and policy incentives into the wastewater treatment sector, they
could launch a new model for low-carbon development that
has the co-benefit of protecting water. In rural areas, as the
country transitions from family farms to industrial agriculture,
there are also new opportunities to implement water and
energy saving technologies.
China’s strong manufacturing base and large
population gives the country an unparalleled ability
to scale-up effective technologies. The Chinese
government’s investments and policies to encourage clean
energy have made the country a leader in solar, wind, and
Photo courtesy of Circle of Blue © J. Carl Ganter
46
cleaner coal technologies. China has become a global
laboratory for testing and improving clean energy technologies
from carbon capture and sequestration to integrated
gasification combined cycle. China has the opportunity to
also play a leadership role in addressing its water-energy-food
confrontations, including more energy efficient desalination
and wastewater treatment, and new waste to energy
technologies.
Water-energy-food confrontations are complex and no single
document can solve these problems, but we hope that
this Roadmap lays out some foundational ideas that can
empower Chinese stakeholders and their partners to develop
a comprehensive framework for alleviating China’s growing
choke points.
Appendix A: China Water-Energy Team
Itinerary
August 4-7, 2013
Strategic Water-Energy Roundtables
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Syntao Co., Ltd. – held at Johnson & Johnson’s Beijing
office
• Development Research Center of the State Council
• Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs
• Institute for Geographic Sciences and Natural
Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Energy Research Institute of the National Development
Pamela Bush is the Secretary and Assistant General
Counsel of the Delaware River Basin Commission.
Heather Cooley is Co-Director of the Pacific Institute’s
Water Program.
Jia Shaofeng is the Deputy Director of the Center for
Water Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of
Sciences.
Jia Yangwen is Vice Director of Department of Water
Resources, China Institute of Water Resources &
Hydropower Research.
Keith Schneider is Senior Editor at Circle of Blue where he
leads their Choke Point work.
and Reform Commission
• Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning
• Beijing University
• Beijing Energy and Environment Roundtable (BEER)
Appendix B: China Water-Energy Team
Member Bios
Vatsal Bhatt is Senior Policy Advisor at Brookhaven
National Laboratory of the United States Department of
Energy and is a senior policy advisor to the U.S.-China
EcoPartnerships Secretariat.
Sun Qingwei previously worked with Greenpeace East
Asia as a Climate and Energy Campaigner where he led the
coal-water nexus research.
Vincent Tidwell is a Distinguished Member of the
Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories conducting
basic and applied projects in water resource management.
Yang Fuqiang is Senior Adviser on climate change, energy
and environment at the Natural Resources Defense Council,
Beijing office where he leads the Coal Consumption Cap
Program.
47
ENDNOTES
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4
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9
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10 The 2030 Water Resources Group. “Charting Our Water Future: Economic
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48
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19 Xie, Jian; Lieberthal, Andres; Warford, Jeremy; Dixon, John; Wang, Manchuan; Gao, Shiji; Wang, Shuilin, et al. “Addressing China’s Water Scarcity:
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20 Ministry of Water Resources of the People’s Republic of China. “China Focus: Central, North China Hurt by Drought.” August 1, 2014. http://www.
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22 The 2030 Water Resources Group. “Charting Our Water Future: Economic
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23 The 2030 Water Resources Group. Ibid. 24 China Water-Energy Team exchange at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning. August 7, 2013.
25 U.S. Energy Information Administration. “China Country Analysis.” February
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27 China Environment Forum. “The Thirsty King: Digging into the Water Footprint of China’s Coal.” Woodrow Wilson Center, 5th Floor. July 24, 2012.
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28 Interview via email with Heather Cooley, Director of Water Program, Pacific
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29 Sun, Guodong. “Coal in China: Resources, Uses, and Advanced Coal
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30 U.S. Energy Information Administration. “China Consumes Nearly as Much
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31 U.S. Energy Information Administration. Ibid.
32 Al Jazeera. “China Plans to Ban Coal Use in Beijing by 2020.” August
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34 Duggan, Jennifer. “China Pledges to Cut Emissions at UN Climate Summit.” September 23, 2014. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.
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35 Martin, Richard. “China’s Great Coal Migration.” July 11, 2014. Forbes.
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42 Schneider, Keith. “Double Choke Point: Demand for Energy Tests Water
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43 Schneider, Keith. “Bohai Sea Pipeline Could Open China’s Northern Coal
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44 Chan, Wai-shin. “The Water Challenge Facing China’s Coal and Power
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chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/6187-The-water-challenge-facing-China-s-coal-and-power-sector-is-inescapable45 Schneider, Keith. “Bohai Sea Pipeline Could Open China’s Northern Coal
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46 China Census for Water. “Bulletin of First National Census for Water.”
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47 China Census for Water. Ibid.
48 U.S. Energy Information Administration. “China Country Analysis.” February
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36 Energy Information Administration. “China Country Analysis.” February
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37 Luo, Tianyi; Otto, Betsy; and Maddocks, Andrew. “Majority of china’s
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38 Greenpeace East Asia. “Thirsty Coal: A Water Crisis Exacerbated by
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39 Greenpeace East Asia. Ibid.
49 David Stanway. “China Falling Behind on 2020 Hydro Goals as Premier
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50 Ivanova, Nadya. “Rains bring relief for six-month China drought, but
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51 Ivanova, Nadya. Ibid.
52 Luan, Dong. “Rock, Metal, and Electronic: Yunnan’s Environmental Discord
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40 Greenpeace East Asia. Ibid. The Ministry of Water Resources has strictly
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53 Luan Dong (Ed.). “Clearing the Air: Is Natural Gas China’s Game Changer
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41 Kalman, Jonathan. “Illegal Coal Mine Encroaching on Nature Reserve
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54 Gass, Henry and ClimateWire. “China Push into Synthetic Natural Gas has
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49
55 Liu, Coco and ClimateWire. “Can China’s Bid to Turn Coal to Gas Be
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56 Wall Street Journal, China Edition. “China’s Shale Gas Reserves Rank First
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57 Vincent Tidwell, Interview by Susan Shifflett in Beijing, August 8, 2013.
58 Bloomberg News. “China Shale Boom Seen by Honghua as Pollution Cuts
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59 Forbes, Sarah. “The United States and China: Moving Toward Responsible
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60 Accenture. “Water and Shale Gas Development: Leveraging the U.S.
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61 Forbes, Sarah. “The United States and China: Moving Toward Responsible
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62 Veil, John; Puder, Markus; Elcock, Deborah; and Redweik, Robert. “A
White Paper Describing Produced Water from Production of Crude Oil,
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63 Marsters, Peter V. “A Revolution on the Horizon: The Potential of Shale Gas
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64 China Dialogue. “China’s Green Revolution: Energy, Environment, and
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65 China Dialogue. Ibid.
66 Zheng, Nina and Fridley, David. “Quenching China’s Thirst for Renewable
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71 Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. “Limiting Factors and
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72 World Nuclear Association. “Nuclear Power in China.” October 2014.
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73 Wald, Matthew L. “Heat Shuts Down a Coastal Reactor.” August 13, 2012.
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74 Reuters. “Nuclear, Coal Power Face Climate Change Risk-Study.” June
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75 World Nuclear Association. “Nuclear Power in China.” September 30,
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76 World Nuclear Association. Ibid.
77 Xinhua News. “National Energy Administration to Re-open Inland Nuclear
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78 China Water-Energy Team exchange session at Chinese Academy of
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79 Kahrl, Fredrich; and Roland-Holst, David. “China’s Water-Energy Nexus.”
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80 Siddiqi, Afreen; and Anadon, Laura Diaz. “The Water-Energy Nexus in
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81 Copeland, Claudia. “Energy-Water Nexus: The Water Sector’s Energy
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82 Copeland, Claudia. Ibid.
83 Kuo, Lily. “China Has Launched the Largest Water-Pipeline Project in
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67 Zheng, Nina and Fridley, David. Ibid.
84 Kuo, Lily. Ibid.
68 Zheng, Nina and Fridley, David. Ibid.
85 State Council of China. “South-to-North Water Diversion Project General
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69 China Committee of Nuclear Power Operators. “2013 Annual Nuclear
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50
70 Zheng, Nina and Fridley, David. “Quenching China’s Thirst for Renewable
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86 Wong, Edward. “Plan for China’s water crisis spurs concern.” The New
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101 Branigan, Tania. “One-third of China’s Yellow River ‘Unfit for Drinking or Agriculture.” November 25, 2008. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.
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87 Wong, Edward. Ibid.
102 Cohen-Tanugi, David. “A Pinch of Salt: Why China’s Brute Force Push
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88 “Dirty Water From South to North.” Caixin. February 24, 2014. http://
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89 China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute. “The State, Challenges,
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90 Cohen-Tanugi, David. “A Pinch of Salt. Why China’s Brute Force Push
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103 Bao, Xiaodong. “Is Desalination’s Spring Really Here?” March 19, 2012.
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104 Hu, Feng; Tan, Debra; & Lazareva, Inna. “8 Facts on China’s Wastewater.”
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105 Yale University. “What’s Behind the Numbers in China’s Wastewater
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91 “State Oceanic Administration Released 2012 Report on National Seawater Utilization.” Chinese Central People’s Government. December 27, 2013.
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106 Yale University. Ibid.
92 Cohen-Tanugi, David. “A Pinch of Salt. Why China’s Brute Force Push
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108 Alliance to Save Energy. “The Water Energy Nexus.” August 12, 2013.
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93 Cooley, Heather. “Desalination and Energy Use…Should We Pass the
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94 Pearce, G.K. “UF/MF Pre-treatment to RO in Seawater and Wastewater
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95 “CPC Representatives Discuss High Electricity Price in Seawater Desalination, Suggest Using Residential Price.” January 19, 2014. People.cn.
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96 Xinhua News. “State Oceanic Administration: China seawater desalination price approaching global price, 5 to 8 yuan per ton.”
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107 Yale University. Ibid.
https://www.ase.org/projects/watergy
109 Interview by Jennifer Turner of several mayors participating in a Georgetown University exchange program who visited the Wilson Center in
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110 Nanjiang Daily. “China Proposing 2 Trillion RMB Investment in Water
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11196 Meng, Yang. “The Damaging Truth About Chinese Fertilizer and Pesticide Use.” July 9, 2012. Chinadialogue. https://www.chinadialogue.net/
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112Li, Y., et al. “China’s Water-Energy Nexus: Greenhouse Gas Emissions
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97 David Cohen-Tanugi interview by Luan (Jonathan) Dong, June 24, 2014.
98 Wines, Michael. “China Takes a Loss to Get Ahead in the Business of
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99 “12th Five-Year Plan Sets Targets for Desalination.” December 24, 2012. Xinhua News. http://news.xinhuanet.com/for-
113 Wang, Jinxia; Rothausen, Sabrina; Conway, Declan; Zhang, Lijuan;
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114 Schneider, Keith. “Food supply, fracking, and water scarcity challenge China’s juggernaut economy.” October 17, 2012. Circle of Blue. http://www.
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100 “Tianjin Desalinated Water to Provide Point-to-Point Supply.” January 8, 2014. Xinhua News. http://news.xinhuanet.com/lo-
115 World Bank DataBank. “World Development Indicators: Urban Population.” 2014. http://databank.worldbank.org/data/views/reports/
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51
116 PBS Newshour. “Food for 9 Billion: Satisfying China’s Growing Demand for
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117 Fred Gale from to Susan Chan Shifflett on July 22, 2014.
118 Christine Boyle email from to Susan Chan Shifflett and Jennifer Turner on
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119 Schneider, Keith. “China’s Other Looming Choke Point: Food Production.”
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120 Anhui News. “China Focus: Central, North China Hurt By
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121 Anhui News. Ibid.
122 Yu, M.; Wand, S.; Rothausen, D.; Conway, L.; Zhang, W.; Xiong, W.; and
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123 Zhang, Moran. “Field of Dreams? Seven Reasons You Don’t Want to be a
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124 Zuo, Changsheng. “Developments and Patterns of Trade in Agricultural
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125 Kinver, Mark. “Growing Pains of China’s Agricultural Water Needs.” June
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126 Yu, M.; Wand, S.; Rothausen, D.; Conway, L.; Zhang, W.; Xiong, W.; and
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129 World Bank. “China: 1.3 million Farmers to Benefit from Increased
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151 Fred Gale email to Susan Chan Shifflett on July 22, 2014.
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55
Roadmap Authors
Susan Chan Shifflett is program associate at the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum
where she focuses on China’s food safety and food security. She previously interned at the U.S.
Department of State’s Office of Global Food Security, working on the Feed The Future initiative.
From 2007-2010, she lived in Beijing where she worked as a program assistant at China’s Center of
Disease Control and Prevention researching high-risk HIV/AIDS populations in Yunnan Province.
Susan received an M.A. in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University’s School of
Advanced International Studies and a B.S. in Biology from Yale University.
Jennifer L. Turner has been the director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow
Wilson Center for 15 years where she creates meetings, exchanges and publications focused on a
variety of energy and environmental challenges facing China. Water-energy nexus challenges and
environmental civil society are at the heart of her current research interests. She received a Ph.D.
in Public Policy and Comparative Politics in 1997 from Indiana University, Bloomington where she
examined local government innovation in implementing water policies in China.
Luan “Jonathan” Dong is a project assistant at the Natural Resources Defense Council office in
Beijing where he works on their Coal Cap project. From January 2013 to July 2014 he was a research
assistant and consultant for the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum. Jonathan also worked
as the Global Warming Research Assistant at Greenpeace in Washington DC and as a research
assistant for the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing. He completed a Master’s in
International Affairs and Sustainable Development at George Washington University in 2013.
Ilaria Mazzocco is a research intern at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum
and a program associate at the SAIS China Africa Research Initiative. She is currently pursuing
an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics at the Johns Hopkins School of
Advanced International Studies. Previously she worked at the Asia Society in New York City and was a
research fellow at the Global Environmental Institute in Beijing. She holds a Master’s in International
Relations and European Studies from Central European University in Hungary and a B.A. from Bard
College.
Bai Yunwen is the co-founder and the deputy director of Greenovation Hub where she leads the
Climate and Finance Policy Centre. Her research focuses on international financial flows, climate and
energy policy and financing schemes. She leads Greenovation Hub’s evidence-based research and
policy analysis, which aims to influence debates to accelerate China’s green development. She has
over 10 years of experience working with international NGOs and foundations on climate issues.
She also serves on the board of the China Climate Action Network. Yunwen holds MSc degrees in
Environmental Science and Environmental Policy & Management.
56
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